Hamideh Shariati
Physical education constitutes an important component of school curriculum so that disregard for physical education may cause irreparable damages to students’ motor, physical, mental and social development. The present study aims at comparing PE teachers and female students’ attitudes toward physical fitness tests in junior and senior high schools of Golestan province. The study adopted a descriptive-comparative method so as to describe, compare and report the status quo of physical education without subjective inferences. The population of the study consisted of all female PE teachers as well as all female students at junior and senior high schools in Golestan province in the 2008-2009 academic year. A number of 138 female PE teachers and 384 female students were randomly selected as the participants using Morgan table. The data was collected using a researcher-made questionnaire. The face validity of the scale was approved by a few experts. The reliability of the scale was estimated and approved using Cronbach alpha formula. Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Mann Whitney U tests were run to analyze the data. The results showed no significant difference between PE teachers and students’ attitudes toward assessment problems of physical fitness tests, fitness test-induced injuries, consistency of fitness tests with students’ physical strength, the amount of training required for fitness tests, general status quo of fitness tests, teaching methodology of physical education courses, sports facilities and equipment and increased hours of PE lessons in the curriculum. The study ends up with a few applicable and research recommendations.
