Abstract
This study examines physical activity (PA) patterns in the context of global leisure activity of undergraduate students in a large Midwest state university. A sample of students (n = 253) from a total population of 975 in the school of Physical Education Sport and Exercise Science participated in the study in the fall of 2010. Student PA was measured using the leisure and physical activity survey (LPA). Descriptive statistics and nonparametric correlation analyses were used to examine the relationship between five leisure and physical activities and four independent factors. Skewness and kurtosis values ranged from [absolute value of .022] to 11.7941 and [absolute value of .311] to [absolute value of 2.374]. All values were within the cut-off value of 2.58 at the .01 level, indicating multivariate normality among the data. The highest mean value indicated that the majority (76.7%, M = 2.73, SD = 0.52) of the respondents engaged in web surfing 6 to 7 days a week. Video gaming was the least frequently performed leisure activity (M = 1.43, SD = 0.67). Significant positive correlation (r = . 15) was found between the participants' age and the frequency of weightlifting, indicating older participants were more likely to engage in weightlifting. Significant positive correlation (r = .18) was found between the participants' gender and the frequency of weightlifting, indicating male participants were more likely to engage in weightlifting. Gender was also positively and significantly correlated with video gaming (r = .39), indicating male participants were more frequently engaging in video gaming. However, negative significant correlation (r = - .27) was found between gender and the frequency of aerobic exercise, indicating female participants were more likely to engage in this physical activity. The participants with a higher GPA were less likely to play video games as evidenced by the negative correlation (r = -.14). In contrast, the participants with higher GPA were more likely to choose aerobic exercise (r = .20). Interestingly, the participants who spent more time weightlifting engaged in both video gaming and aerobic exercises more frequently than who spent less (in minutes for both activities; r = .17 and .19, respectively). The data from the study suggest more effective interventions should be implemented to promote PA among university students.