2004 Volume 1 Pages 1-14
The purpose of the present study was to develop a scale to measure individual differences in health-related life skills in adolescents, and to examine the relationship between evaluation of health-related life skills and sport experience. The scale was based on a framework of health defined by WHO (1994), which includes 3 aspects: physical, psychological, and social. In study 1, we analyzed 1755 adolescents (846 junior high school students, 557 high school students, and 352 university students). A factor analysis for each of the 3 scales was conducted to find the factor component. Consequently, 6 factors were extracted: physical skills (physical activities skills and health maintenance skills), psychological skills (goal pursuing skills and coping skills), and social skills (collective bahavior skills and interpersonal skills). The results also showed that the scale was moderately reliable and valid for measuring health-related life skills in adolescents. In study 2, another survey was carried out on 304 high school students who had experience in athletic activities and 215 students who had not experienced athletic activities. From the results, it was clarified that students who had experienced athletic activities acquired more health-related life skills than students who had not experienced athletic activities. These results suggested that sport experience influences health-related life skills.