"Transition" refers to the state of change from current situation or environment into the next(Yoo, 2007). Among many transitions in life, the period between elementary school to middle school is a very important period where adolescents prepare themselves for the adulthood and make plans for life while adapting to the new environment, internalizing sense of values and ego, and this period usually involves negative behaviors and risks such as regression, aggressive behavior, negligence of study, abuse of substances, violence, sexual delinquency, and suicide. The physical activity plays a very positive role for both physical and mental health as an alternative for such risks(Fox & Corbin, 1989). Nonetheless, the physical activity begins to decrease noticeably along with the negative attitude of students through the transition period. In other words, the curriculum development experts must consider various influential factors in order to increase students'' participation in physical activity. Also, examining the student''s attitudes and giving efforts for them to develop more positive attitudes are important as the attitude in this period plays a decisive role in the participation in sports for life. Outside Korea, there have been many studies to understand the difficulties during the tradition period and help the adolescents in that period, however, not many understand the difficulties the students in this period feel. For this, the purpose of this study was to examine the attitude of students toward physical education in relation to the transition from elementary school to middle school, and it is expected to increase their participation in physical activities and contribute to more positive school life.
For this study, the subjects consisted of total 1,225 students (male: 633/female: 562) including 663 (male: 343/female: 320) students in the 6th grade in 4 elementary schools located in B-gu, D-si and 562 students (male: 315/female: 247) in the 7th grade in 2 middle schools in the same school district were selected, and 5 students from male and female groups in elementary and middle schools, total 20 students, were selected for individual interviews. The instruments were based on a questionnaire study with total 15 questions including 2 on personal characteristics, 11 on attitude towards physical education, and 2 on transition. For the collection of data, full explanation about the purpose of the study was given to the sampling targets in advance to give motivations based on the survey guide after obtaining the consent of the teacher in charge of physical education and then the questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data, and in this process, individual interviews were conducted with students who agreed to have individual interviews and gave more meaning to transition. Individual interviews were conducted for 30 minutes once or twice by combining half-structured interview and non-structured interview. For the collected data, the content analysis was conducted using open questionnaire and frequency and percentage analysis, two-way ANOVA, and correlation analysis were conducted with SPSS 20.0, and the individual interviews were examined through inductive data analysis.
The results were as follows. First, students appeared to develop negative attitude toward physical education while undergoing transition based on the feeling towards physical education, beliefs about ability, favourite parts of physical education, ideal changes to physical education, beliefs about outcomes, beliefs about transition, and actual changes following the transition that middle school students perceive. Second, male students appeared to have more favorable feeling towards physical education than female students (F=118.011, p<.05) considering the effect of school level and sex on the attitude toward physical education and elementary school students appeared to feel more favorable toward physical education than middle school students (F=111.70, p<.05) considering the school level, and they appeared to have effect of interaction. Also, male group appeared to rate their capabilities high compared with female group (F=97.414, p<.05) considering the sex groups, and elementary school students appeared to rate their capabilities high compared with middle school students (F=19.014, p<.05) considering the school level, and they appeared to have no effect of interaction. There was significant correlation between this perception and the feeling towards physical (p>.05), it appeared to have 16.2% of statistical significance (p>.05). Male students appeared to perceive higher performance for physical education compared with female students (F=70.73, p<.05) and elementary school students, compared with middle school students (F=126.43, p<.05), and they also appeared to have effect of interaction. Third, the non-receptive attitude and performance assessment oriented teaching method of the teacher, inconvenience in changing clothes, and physical changes were the elements that appeared to influence the attitude toward physical education, and all of them appeared to form negative attitude toward physical education.
According to these study findings, the habit of participating in physical activities of adolescents in the transition period becomes an important element in forming a wholesome lifestyle that continuous efforts must be given to help students develop positive attitude toward physical education. Therefore, follow-up studies in the future would need longitudinal studies targeting the same participants, participatory and non-participatory observation, the additional interview with the physical education teacher in charge, and the attempt to develop an educational program based on the findings of this study.