This longitudinal study examined changes in students’ attitudes towards physical education (PE) over three years across grades 7–12, investigating the predictive roles of perceived benefits and barriers, and satisfaction with school sports facilities, while exploring differences by gender and school level. Data were collected from 324 students (143 boys, 181 girls) across 13 schools in Athens, Greece, over three annual measurements, with participants divided into middle school (grades 7–9, n = 152) and high school (grades 10–12, n = 172) cohorts. Students completed validated measures assessing cognitive and affective attitudes towards PE, perceived benefits and barriers, and satisfaction with school sports facilities. Mixed-design multivariate analysis of variance revealed significant temporal changes for both cognitive and affective attitudes, with linear declining trends across measurement occasions. Middle school students showed a consistent decline in attitude, while high school students demonstrated different patterns based on gender, with a significant three-way interaction concerning cognitive attitudes. Between-subjects effects revealed school-level differences in cognitive attitudes and gender differences in both attitude types. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that perceived benefits and barriers together explained 21–31% of the variance in Year 3 attitudes. For middle school students, perceived benefits emerged as the strongest predictor for both cognitive and affective attitudes. For high school students, perceived barriers dominated predictions for both attitude types. School sports facility satisfaction was not a significant predictor, except for high school students’ affective attitudes. Results suggest interventions should enhance perceived benefits during middle school while emphasising barrier reduction for high school students.
Evangelou et al. (Tue,) studied this question.