Exploring The Attitude Of College Students Towards Tai Chi: A Quasi Experiment Of A Short Tai Chi Course (Stcc)

Abstract

Background: Attitude is critical to exercise; various studies have involved in attitude to physical education but not Tai Chi. However, Tai   Chi is a compulsory course in many universities in China, some students         may have negative attitude to it.

Purpose: To improve college students’ attitude to Tai Chi via the Short Tai Chi Course (STCC).

Methods: A quasi-experiment was conducted to assess it. The instrument for attitude is a questionnaire which consist of 15 items. STCC is a 5 weeks         course for teaching both theoretical knowledge and practical skill. 325 freshmen were enrolled for the trial and finally 289 students (72.3% female, 86.9% come from countryside) finished it. Results: In the baseline, more than three fourth students showed a neutral attitude to Tai Chi, around one fifth students had negative attitude toward Tai Chi, and less than 10% participants hold the positive attitude to Tai Chi. In the post-test, there is a clear increase of mean for each item but not item 6 and item 15, this change highlights the improve of positive attitude and reduce of negative for college students to Tai Chi. The P value of paired t test for each item (exclude item 14) is 0.000 <.0.001 which indicate those items has an extremely significant difference in pretest and post-test.

Conclusion: Although around half college students still hold the neutral attitude to Tai Chi, they already have a significantly improve on positive attitude and considerate reduce on negative attitude.