The determinants of regular exercise behavior among college students

[[abstract]]The main purpose of this study is to investigate the current status of the regular exercise of college students, and to explore its relationships with demographic characteristics and socio-psychological variable. The subjects of this survey were selected from the students of a four-year college located in Taipei County. By using a stratified cluster sampling method and self-administered questionnaires, 376 valid samples were collected. One-way ANOVA, Chi-square test, Point-biserial correlation, Hotelling T2 Test and Logistic Regression were used to analyze the collected data. The results of this research were summarized as follows： 1. 10.6% and 89.4% of the subjects exercise regularly and irregularly, respectively. The main types of exercise done by the subjects are Walking (48.4%), ladder-climbing (44.7%), and basketball (31.6%). 2. Better exercise behavior can be seen in male population, and in those who participate in sports clubs, who feel themselves “healthy”, and who watch exercise programs on TV. 3. Regular exercise is highly correlated with perceived self-efficacy for exercise, exercise social support from peer , self-regulation for exercise, enjoyment for exercise；while negatively correlated with perceived barriers for exercise. 4. Participation in sports clubs and perceived self-efficacy for exercise, are significant predictors of regular exercise behavior, and the former is a more important predictor than the latter.