Physical education teaching and learning efforts obviously target the
student. Like parents, teachers, administrators and any other directly
or indirectly involved parties, students do have opinions based on their
experience on their respective physical education classes and physical
education in general. These opinions, or so-called attitudes, are
important to research due to their potential of giving insight to the
learner's perspective, which may also serve as an authentic feedback
from the student. This study investigated German secondary school
students' attitudes toward physical education. Results have the
intention to reveal what attitudes towards physical education German
students have and which factors influence these attitudes. The study
sample contained students from the different school types Gymnasium,
Realschule, and Haupt-/Werkrealschule. The students were surveyed via
questionnaire that was developed based on validated research instruments
from prior studies in the field. Data was analyzed integrating
independent variables such as students' gender, physical education
grade, grade point average, body mass index, socioeconomic status, type
of school, citizenship, and the exercise and physical activity behavior
of students, their parents and their peers.