Comparison of Students’ Perception of Environmental and Social Supports for Participation in Physical Activities Given their Gender

摘要

Dominant climate in collegiate environments and social supports from friends and family are taken into account as important determinants of physical activity level. In this direction, the purpose of present study was allocated to determine gender differences in perceptions of environmental and social supports for participation in physical activities in college age students. To this aim, in an ex post facto study, 300 undergraduate students (162 girls and 138 boys aged 20.32±0.98 and 20.97±1.02 years, respectively) who were studying in the second semester of 2012 at the Alzahra and Tehran universities, completed individual characteristics questionnaire, Perceived School Climate for Physical Activity Scale (Birnbaum et al., 2010), and Social Support for Physical Activity Scale (Grieser et al., 2010). Data were analyzed using Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and follow up one-way ANOVA at the p 0.05). But about peers support, boy students had higher perceptions of their peers' environmental support (p 0.05). About social support provided from friends, results offered more benefits for boy students (p<0.05). This study discusses gender differences in the environmental and social supports to improve students' participation in physical activities.