Underserved Adolescent Girls’ Physical Activity Intentions and Behaviors: Relationships with the Motivational Climate and Perceived Competence in Physical Education

Copyright © 2013 Alex C. Garn et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This study investigated underserved adolescent girls' perceptions of the motivational climate in relationship to their perceptions of competence in urban physical education, self-reported physical activity, and future physical activity intentions. A total of two-hundred-seventy-six underserved (i.e., minority, urban, high poverty) adolescent girls completed questionnaires and a multi-step approach was used to test these relationships. First, a trichotomous model of the perceived motivational climate was tested using confir-matory factor analysis and results suggested a good fit of the data. Structural equation modeling analyses were then used to test both direct and indirect relationships between the perceived motivational climates in physical education, perceived competence in physical education, and physical activity outcomes. Findings revealed that the relationship between the perceived motivational climates and physical activity outcomes were best understood when perceived competence in physical education was accounted for as an intermediary factor. Introduction The social environment in physical education (PE), especially at the secondary level, has often been criticized for favoring males to the detriment of females (Larsson, Fagrell, & Redelius, 2009). Reinforcing physical activity stereotypes, curricular choices and class structures geared toward male aggression , and lowering performance expectations based on gender are all examples of how the social environment in PE can potentially reduce girls' feelings of physical competence suggest that adolescent boys are more apt to be physically active than girls in and out of PE. Some researchers suggest that only about a quarter of girls in high school meet recommended physical activity guidelines (Butcher, Sallis, Mayer, & Woodruff, 2008). Underserved populations (i.e., ethnic minority, inner-city, low socioeconomic status) are at an even greater risk for low levels of physical activity These authors suggest that living in poverty , limited access to physical activity space, and neighborhood safety concerns are formidable barriers to physical activity for many underserved adolescents. The physical activity challenges that many underserved adolescents face outside of school places urban PE in a unique position. Specifically, urban PE is frequently one of the primary settings for underserved adolescents to obtain physical activity (Gordon-Larsen et al., 2000; Martin & McCaughtry, 2008). Because the social environment in PE is often male-centered, underserved adolescent girls may be exposed to an especially high …