Participation in physical activity is beneficial for health and motivation is an important theme in sport psychology. The purpose of this study was to examine the difference of the relationship between the motivation for physical activity and daily life skills among Chinese and Japanese college students. A questionnaire survey was conducted for 1039 college students (Chinese, n = 526; Japanese, n = 513). Japanese and Chinese version of Physical Activity and Leisure Motivation Scale (PALMS, 1, 2) and a Daily Life Skills Scale for College Students (DLS, 3, 4) were completed by the participants. The PALMS includes eight sub scales which are Mastery, Physical Condition, Affiliation, Psychological Condition, Appearance, Others’ Expectations, Enjoyment and Competition/Ego. DLS includes 8 sub-scales, which are classified into 2 general skills: skills used mainly in personal situations (planning, knowledge summarization, self-esteem, and positive thinking), and skills used generally in interpersonal situations (intimacy, leadership, empathy, and interpersonal manner). The Chinese version of “Daily Life-Skills Scale” created in this study was confirmed, Significant differences between Chinese and Japanese University students were observed. Chinese college students had a higher mean score for the intimacy factor, leadership factor, planning factors, knowledge summarization factor and self-esteem factor. While Japanese college students had a higher mean scores for the aspects of empathy and interpersonal manner. This study found different relationships between the motivation for physical activity and daily life skills among Chinese and Japanese college students. It might be due to cultural differences between those countries. Future research should be focusing on gender and cultural differences of both countries regarding to the motivation for leisure.
Shimamoto and Ishii (2006) developed a scale for evaluating “life skills” as one measure for early detection of students’ problems and for deepening their self-understanding. Life skills are defined as, “behaviors that are necessary for effective living” (Jr. Brooks, 1984) . Moreover, the World Health Organization (WHO) has defined life skills as “necessary skills to constructively and effectively manage various issues and needs arising in daily life”. Life skills are general psychosocial skills that can be used to solve various problems (Kawabata, 1994) . They are regarded as indices of development of students’ personality that can be improved through repeating training (Shimamoto & Ishii, 2007) . Recently, young people’s life skills have been focused in China, as well as in Western countries, as well as in Japan, because the decline in life skills, including social skills has become a social problem (Chen & Tsuchiya, 2016) . The study of life skills is an important issue in contemporary China.
Factors related to improvement of life skills have often been investigated in sports psychology. For example, Murakami et al. (2004) , Ueno (2001) compared life skills between students belonging and those not belonging to sports clubs, and examined the effects of sports club activities on life skills. These studies have suggested that physical education and sports club activities have positive effects on life skills. However, correlations between university students’ motives for participating in sports and their life skills in China and Japan have not been examined to date.
Chen and Tsuchiya (2016) conducted a comparative study of life skills between Chinese and Japanese university students. The results indicated that among life skills, “intimacy”, “leadership”, “planning”, “knowledge summarization”, and “self-esteem” were higher in Chinese students, whereas “empathy” and “interpersonal manners” were higher in Japanese students. Furthermore, it was indicated that students doing exercise more often had higher life skills (Chen & Tsuchiya, 2016) , suggesting that life skills are correlated with exercise. This study investigated correlations between university students’ motives for participating in exercise and their life skills by comparing Chinese and Japanese students. The aim of the study was to contribute to university students’ educational guidance in the two countries.
China is a multiethnic nation with various regional differences. Participants of this study were students at universities located in large cities, and most participants were Han Chinese. From March to April in 2014, a questionnaire survey was conducted with students (N = 550) at three universities located in urban areas in China (A in Beijing, B and C in Haikou). The number of valid responses was 526, which included those from including 237 men and 289 women (mean age 19.35, ±0.48 years). A questionnaire consisting of identical question items was conducted with Japanese students (N = 550) at three universities located in cities with a one million or higher population (D in Osaka, E in Nara, and F in Kyoto) from April to May in 2014. The number of valid responses was 513, which included 228 men and 285 women (mean age 18.35, ±0.5 years).
Items on sex, age, exercise conditions, conditions of sports club affiliation (1) University clubs, 2) Fitness clubs, 3) Sports club teams outside the university, 4) Not belonging to any club) and exercise levels were identified. Moreover, items for measuring intensity of exercise were developed, requiring participants to choose one from three choices: low (they can sing during exercise), middle (they can talk but cannot sing during exercise), and high (they can just talk a few words when stopping to breathe).
Japanese students’ life skills were measured using the “Daily Life Skills Scale for College Students” developed by Shimamoto and Ishii (2006) , based on previous studies on life and social skills (Suzuki, 1992) . This scale consists of eight sub-scales and 24 items. Participants are required to respond using a 4-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 4 (very true), such that higher scores indicated higher skills. The eight types of skills were classified into individual and interpersonal skills, such that the former included “planning”, “knowledge summarization”, “self-esteem”, and “positive thinking”. And the latter included “intimacy”, “leadership”, “empathy”, and “interpersonal manners”. Chinese students’ life skills were assessed using the Chinese version of “Daily Life Skills Scale for College Students” developed by Chen and Tsuchiya (2016) .
Japanese students’ motives for participating in exercise were assessed using the Japanese version of the Physical Activity and Leisure Motivation Scale (PALMS) developed by Machida et al. (2013) . This scale consists of eight sub-scales and 40 items. Participants are required to respond using a five-point scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), such that higher scores indicated higher motivation for participating in exercise. The eight types of motives were as follows; “mastery”, “physical conditions”, “affiliation”, “psychological conditions”, “appearance”, “others’ expectations”, “enjoyment”, and “competition/ego”. Chinese students’ motives were assessed using the Chinese version of PALMS developed by Wang et al. (2013) .
An anonymous questionnaire survey was conducted simultaneously in the two groups. Ethical aspects of the study were taken into consideration by obtaining the approval of all the participants before the study through the teachers’ cooperation in each university. Questionnaires were distributed at the start of classes. Then, participants responded to the questionnaires immediately and they were collected.
China (n = 526) | Japan (n = 513) | t-test | |
---|---|---|---|
Mean S.D. | Mean S.D. | ||
Intimacy | 8.81 1.61 | 8.74 1.72 | 0.37 |
Leadership | 8.09 1.68 | 7.23 1.95 | 9.02*** |
Planning | 7.98 1.68 | 7.63 1.97 | 9.19** |
Empathy | 8.31 1.65 | 8.93 1.66 | 6.47*** |
Knowledge summarization | 8.56 1.57 | 7.5 1.83 | 8.44*** |
Self-esteem | 7.95 1.73 | 7.20 1.98 | 7.84*** |
Positive thinking | 8.20 1.40 | 8.16 1.51 | 0.23 |
Interpersonal manners | 9.52 1.57 | 9.73 1.63 | 7.50 |
Mastery | 17.40 3.68 | 17.57 3.47 | 0.26 |
Physical conditions | 17.13 3.34 | 20.37 2.81 | 5.17*** |
Affiliation | 15.89 3.43 | 16.34 3.42 | 2.6 |
Psychological conditions | 16.00 3.47 | 18.95 3.02 | 9.71*** |
Appearance | 16.51 3.67 | 16.78 3.76 | 0.43 |
Others’ expectations | 15.61 3.71 | 16.92 3.26 | 2.25 |
Enjoyment | 15.58 3.30 | 19.00 3.12 | 4.63*** |
Competition/ego | 15.65 3.48 | 12.32 3.47 | 5.71*** |
*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001.
Skills | China | Japan | |
---|---|---|---|
(n = 526) | (n = 513) | ||
Scale Score | Scale Score | ||
Individual skills | Planning | 0.31** | 0.32** |
Knowledge summarization | 0.37** | 0.36** | |
Self-esteem | 0.35** | 0.32** | |
Positive thinking | 0.11** | 0.12* | |
Interpersonal skills | Intimacy | 0.28** | 0.41** |
Leadership | 0.36** | 0.39** | |
Empathy | 0.25** | 0.36** | |
Interpersonal manners | 0.24** | 0.32** |
*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001.
thinking, i.e. planning, knowledge summarization, self-esteem, intimacy, leadership, empathy, and interpersonal manners. Among individual life skills, planning, i.e. skills for efficiently dealing with different information, had a weak positive correlation with motives for participation in exercise. On the other hand, among interpersonal life skills, interpersonal manners, i.e. appropriate attitude towards superiors, and strangers, had a weak positive correlation with motives. The above results supported tendencies indicated by Shimamoto and Ishii (2007) .
This study focused on the results of correlation analysis between Chinese and Japanese students. Subsequently, multiple regression analyses were conducted. In addition to planning, knowledge summarization, and self-esteem, the following four types of life skills were analyzed, in total seven types of life skills; intimacy, i.e. skills for developing and maintaining intimate relationships with friends, leadership, i.e. skills for positively being involved in activities within a group one belongs to, empathy, i.e. skills for empathizing with others’ feelings based on one’s own experience, and interpersonal manners, i.e. skills for making smooth relationships with others.
Correlation coefficients among independent variables of exercise participation motives were 0.513 - 0.684 (P < 0.001) in Chinese students and 0.347 - 0.584 (P < 0.001) in Japanese students. Correlation coefficients of 70 or higher were not observed. Furthermore, Oshio (2004) suggested that generally multicollinearity occurred when the value of VIF was 10 or higher. However, VIF values in the present study were 1.36 - 2.41 for Chinese and 1.01 - 2.06 for Japanese students. Therefore, the possibility of multicolli- nearity in multiple regression analysis was low.