Abstract
The purpose of this study was to analyze the causal structure of the promotion process of initiative problem-solving ability in a junior high school in physical education (PE) program utilizing Structural Equation Modeling (SEM).The healthy 298 boys and 300 girls, first to third graders answered a quastionnaire on the PE program at their school.The causal structure model of the promotion process of initiative problem-solving ability in the PE program was hypothesized to be a cyclic causal loop consisting of 4 major domains:intrinsic motivation, initiative action, achievement satisfaction and selfrecognition.Standardized Cronbach's α coefficient was utilized for reliability analysis, and second order factor analysis for analyzing the validity analysis of the indicators.SEM with a multiple indicator model was utilized to analyze the causal structure model.The coefficients of reliability and validity were statistically moderate for the causal structure analysis.The causal coefficient between the domains of intrinsic motivation and initiative action ability was .59, followed by .64 between the domains of initiative action ability and achievement satisfaction, .35 between those of achievement satisfaction and self-recognition, and .74 between those of self-recognition and intrinsic motivation.These causal coefficients between the domains of the model were statistically significant (P<.05).The degree of the model fitting indicator GFI was .92, followed by .88 for AGFI, .94 for NFI, .90 for CFI and .92 for TLI.It was inferred that the causal structure model in the promotion process of initiative problem-solving ability in the PE program was statistically valid from the degrees of the model-fitting indicators.
