Middle school students' views about physical education: A comparative study between four European countries

Periæ, Antonio; Rodrigues Sampaio, António; Pankowska-Jurczyk, Katarzyna; Batutis, Olegas; Costa, João; Onofre, Marcos; Martins, João

Middle school students' views about physical education: A comparative study between four European countries

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Date

2021

Authors

Periæ, Antonio

Rodrigues Sampaio, António

Pankowska-Jurczyk, Katarzyna

Batutis, Olegas

Costa, João

Onofre, Marcos

Martins, João

Publisher

Federaión Española de Asociaciones de Docentes de Educación Física (FEADEF)

Abstract

Comparable and cross-national research is needed to examine students' views on the role of physical education (PE) inpromoting active and healthy lifestyles, particularly in non-English speaking contexts. Thus, the present study aims to investigate and compare the views of middle school students from four European countries towards PE, considering cross-national and gender variables. = 14.3 ± 0.9 years) from a public secondary school in Croatia, Lithuania, Poland and Portugal, answered to a questionnaire about their: (a) PE attitude, (b) PE importance, (c) PE mainaim, and (d) perception of competence in PE. ANOVA and Student t-test were used to compare students' views across countries, and to compare boys' and girls' views within each country. Overall, results show that the students' views towards PE were mainly positive but important differences were found across the students from the four European countries. In all countries, boys have a more positive attitude, gave more importance to PE and perceived themselves as more competent than girls. Regardless of the sociocultural context, this study suggests that there is a cross-national need to further explore the nature of the differences found and increase young girl's attitudestowards PE. Additionally, more comparative studies are needed with a broad range of sociocultural contexts to assess the extent to whichthis type of differences is present.Keywords: physical education, adolescents, attitude, perception of competence, comparative education gave more importance to PE and perceived themselves as more competent than girls. Regardless of the sociocultural context, this study suggests that there is a cross-national need to further explore the nature of the differences found and increase young girl's attitudestowards PE. Additionally, more comparative studies are needed with a broad range of sociocultural contexts to assess the extent to whichthis type of differences is present.Keywords: physical education, adolescents, attitude, perception of competence, comparative education gave more importance to PE and perceived themselves as more competent than girls. Regardless of the sociocultural context, this study suggests that there is a cross-national need to further explore the nature of the differences found and increase young girl's attitudestowards PE. Additionally, more comparative studies are needed with a broad range of sociocultural contexts to assess the extent to whichthis type of differences is present.

Keywords

Physical education , Adolescents , Attitude , Perception of competence , Comparative education

Citation

Periæ, A., Rodrigues Sampaio, A., Pankowska-Jurczyk, K., Batutis, O., Costa, J., Onofre, M. and Martins, J. (2021) 'Middle school students' views about physical education: A comparative study between four European countries', Retos, 31 (1º semestre), pp. 369-402.