THE IMPACT OF MOVIE MARTIAL ARTS ON JORDANIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: THE MODERATING ROLE OF SOCIOECONOMIC BACKGROUND

Abstract

Jordanian universities have recorded increasing problems of violence among students in Private and
Public universities recently. Numerous works have explored the causes of violence among students but
other factors causing student violence have not been studied as much. Therefore, this phenomenon must
be investigated to help decision-makers reduce the rate of violence among students. Accordingly, this
research focused on the movies and their implications on Jordanians. In specific, this research evaluated
the effect of martial arts movies on violence among Jordanian university students. The students’
socioeconomic background was taken as the moderating variable. Questionnaires were distributed to
372 Jordanian students from Al Zaytoonah Private University (Faculty of Economics and Business) and
Yarmouk University (Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences). The results indicated that
the martial arts shown in movies would cause students to exhibit more aggressive behaviour, as they
strive to imitate the movie stars. In turn, the students increasingly take up martial arts practices on
campus and see it as a positive thing. Also, the students’’ socioeconomic background positively
moderated the relationship between movie martial arts and violence among Jordanian university
students.
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