This study investigated children's attributions for their performance in creative dance and folk dance. Eighty-six grade 5 and 6 children from a suburban elementary school participated in five creative dance and five folk dance lessons as part of their regular physical education program. After participation in each dance type, children completed a questionnaire which assessed their perceived success and attributions for their performance. After rating their perceived success in creative/folk dance, children gave an open-ended attributional statement for their performance, and then scored their statement along the four causal dimensions (personal control, locus of causality, stability, external control) (Weiss, McAuley, Ebbeck, & Wiese, 1990). Thirteen dance lessons were videotaped and the teacher's behavior was analysed. Results showed that children in both creative and folk dance tended to: (a) perceive their performance as successful, and (b) make functional attributions by attributing their performance to factors which they perceived as being personally controllable, internal, and not under the control of other people. Results indicated no significant effects of dance type or gender for perceived success and the four causal dimensions. However, two significant effects were found for grade, as the grade 5's perceived their performance to be more successful than the grade 6's, and also attributed their performance to factors that were less under the control of other people. Results from children's open-ended attributional statements and the observational recordings of the teacher's behavior supported the notion that creative dance and folk dance are two distinct forms of dance. The overall results appear to have positive implications with respect to the influence of creative dance and folk dance on the motivation of children. The findings therefore support the inclusion of dance in elementary physical education programs.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.22574 |
| Date | January 1994 |
| Creators | Cholod, Kirsten L. (Kirsten Lynn) |
| Contributors | Downey, Peggy (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Physical Education.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001451865, proquestno: MM05371, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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