In many cases, schools still teach gender specific sports. For example, girls typically play netball whilst boys play rugby (Murphy, Dionigi and Litchfield, 2014). Girls are not encouraged to play sport from such a young age as the Women's Sport Foundation (2008) found that females tend to start later (around 8 to 9 years) than their male counterparts who start at an average age of 6 years. Since title IX was introduced in 1972 (Womens Sport Foundation, 2011), PE classes have become coeducational in many educational institutions and allow boys and girls take part in similar activities (Gabbei, 2004; Hill and Cleven, 2005). However, research suggests that for some students, this is not the most appropriate environment for learning. Derry and Phillips (2004) suggest that students can receive equal opportunities but this does not necessarily need to be through coeducational classes. Results from a study by Hill, Hannon and Knowles (2012) looking into the perceptions of PE teachers and university teacher educators regarding coeducational and single sex PE lessons suggested that the majority of teachers preferred single-sex classes as they found boys develop more advanced skills, most boys and girls prefer gender separate activities and girls participate more fully when I single-sex classes. Although, research by Schmitt (2001) and Hannon & Ratcliffe (2005) pointed out that girls participate more when in single sex classes, they found that females worked at their target heart rate for longer periods of time and accumulated more pedometer steps per minute when in a coeducational setting.
One key factor that may determine whether adolescents adopt a healthy lifestyle is whether they are motivated for PE, that is, whether they enjoy PE and how valuable they believe the subject is (Haerens et al, 2010). PE helps students to establish habits that positively influence their quality of life.