Perceptions of health concept among jordanian high school students

Health education as a school subject and community awareness program has been gaining importance in many countries. Understanding the nature of the health concept is vital for planning the health education curricula and programs. Using a sample of 996 eighth, tenth, and twelfth grade, male and female, rural and urban, Jordanian high school students, differential perceptions of health concept were investigated by means of free word associations and definitions tests. Concurrent validity was established between the two measures. Both the tests yielded eleven categories each defining a different perspective of health concept. Category means were determined and the relative importance of each perceived aspect of health was discussed. Treating the eleven category scores as dependent variables and area, sex, and grade as independent variables, data were analyzed by MANOVA. The results showed some interesting interaction effects highlighting the differential perceptions of the health concept among various area gender and grade defined groups of students. Findings have implications for designing health education curricula.