Significance Of Everyday Physical Education In Shaping Young Adults’ Views On Sports And Health

Author(s):

Gábor Fintor(presenting / submitting)József Szabó Ágoston Nagy Szilvia Borbély

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

18. Research in Sports Pedagogy

Format:

Poster

Session Information

18 SES 05.5 PS, General Poster Session

General Poster Session

Time:

2015-09-09

12:30-14:00

Room:

Poster Area

Chair:

Leen Haerens

Contribution

Health and health behaviour of young people is an extremely important topic because this is the age when they learn and adopt such patterns which will have essential effects on their later lives (Rácz 2005). From the behavioural aspects the most threatening factors are health inactivity and risk behaviour (smoking, alcohol or drug consumption, early sexual activity). Unhealthy eating habits and inactive life was considered to be the most important risk factors in 2010 in the whole world (Lim et al. 2012). From the elements of health behaviour, regular physical activity (60 minutes of medium intensity activity per day is acceptable (Strong et al (2005)), and doing sports is important even more so because regular activity during adolescent age is beneficial for an active life in adulthood (Telama et al 2005). However, it is a problem that according to international recommendations (Strong et al. 2005), Hungarian adolescents and youth do not do as much sports as they need to (Halmai-Németh 2010, Perényi 2014).
We agree with the scholars who think that one should start doing physical exercises in early childhood, preferably in school because childhood physical activity have decisive effects on the quality of later life physical activity (Bognár et al 2005).
The school system, and especially physical education is aimed at shaping the physical appearance (Kirk 1998) and soul (Rose 1990) of the children. Many researches have confirmed the effects of physical education lesson on daily physical activity (Morgan et al 2007), short-range effects on health, for example overweight (Drake et al 2012), psychological health (Mather et al 2002) and being fit (Carrel et al 2005). Thus the statement of Mikulán (2013) could well be justified: it says that the introduction of everyday physical education is a significant turning point in the teaching of P. E. Health behaviour of students may turn to permanently positive with the help of physical education.
According to an American study conducted in 2003 almost all parents (95%) think that regular physical activity helps their children to achieve better results in school. (National Association for Sport and Physical Education 2003). On the World Youth Day in March 2014 a public opinion poll was conducted via telephone and it has revealed that third of the parents have noticed the positive effects of the everyday physical education and according to their opinion regular physical activity has positive effects on the behaviour, general mood and learning performance of their child.
The effect of the University of Debrecen on the quality of life is apparent. Thus its role requires its goals to be carried out in a pre-planned and gradually fashioned way. Elements of the related strategy facilitate the closely related programs and thus its benefits are unquestionable in the Northern region regarding social, economical and global development.
The aim of our research is to find out how important physical education (that is, P.E. lesson) is for those questioned (elementary school children, university students). Does level of popularity decrease with the students involved getting older?
Moreover, we also wish to seek the opinion of parents about the importance and necessity of the introduction of everyday physical education. We have also studied the positive and negative attitudes and their values that are present among schoolchildren regarding everyday physical education.
We wish to see the differences, if any, among students whose education is funded by the state and those who pay for their own tuition, regarding the level of university sports life and their satisfaction thereof.

Method

The research was conducted in the form of a self-completion questionnaire in four different (state-funded, church-funded, ministry-funded and other (Waldorf)) institutions in Nyiregyháza (N=285), in May 2014. One grade from the upper classes (from 5th year to 8th year) from each school have taken part in the sample. The questionnaire was composed by the author and contained several parts (with aligning questions concerning everyday physical education to the aims of the National Curriculum), sports habits, free-time activities, learning performances, questions aimed at the subject attitudes, health preservation customs, sociological background variables. During evaluation, we have used the multivariate function analysis besides frequency researches and cross table reference. In the case of university students the questionnaire was handled out at the University of Debrecen (n=2950) (in the years 2007-2009), and representative nature of it is realized for the distribution per different faculties, because in terms of faculties rates are similar in the base population. Authenticity of the sample was also tested and proven by the so-called Cronbach-alpha indicator. As the indicator always crossed the critical 0.6 value we deem this sample authentic. The questionnaire wished to examine the actual roles, possibilities, positions and evaluation of activity of university sports programs, which, besides socio-demographical data, was also concerned with sport-related habits, opinions on physical education and infrastructural facilities. This aim was accomplished by maintaining the representative nature of the questionnaire. In the case of parents (n=1007) the sample taking was conducted within the framework of the nationwide Omnibus research in January 2014 which was realized by the TÁRKI Társadalomkutatási Intézet (Society for Social Research). The taking of the samples was according to the probability sampling process. With this method the deductions taken from the data collected – within the borders of the statistical sample failure – may be generalized for the whole of the population. In order to be sure that the rates of those in the sample are the same as those in the whole of the adult Hungarian population (in terms of gender, age group, education and type of settlement), the sample was weighted and thus the weighted sample matches well the respectable data of the adult Hungarian population in terms of gender, age group, type of settlement and education. In the questionnaire, we have asked about attitudes towards or in connection with everyday physical education besides social background variables and physical education teachers by using the so-called Likert-scale.

Expected Outcomes

Students generally think that physical education is as important as any other subjects, although boys consider it to be more important than the girls (Pearson Chi-Square=0.000). This attitude is not decreasing with the higher grades according to our researches. Those university students who have regularly done sports during their high school years generally do more sports during their university years, too, thus positive transfer effect connects frequency of doing sports, evaluation of efficiency and motivated, regular sports activity. 70% of the parents agree with the necessity of the introduction of everyday physical education thus our statement was confirmed. During the evaluation of the crosstable we have found significant differences in the case of variables of place where these students lived and sports customs during childhood. All these support the idea that sports activities habits in childhood determine relationship of the adults to sport, which directly affects sport habits of the children, and in this case, to everyday physical education, to physical education as a lesson and to his or her teacher. Students agree significantly more with the positive statements (for example: “I began doing sports” (69.9%), “I became more skilful” (71.8%) “now I know more kinds of sports” (75%)) connected to the introduction of everyday physical education than with negative ones (for example: “less time could be spent on other things” (36.1%)). However, according to their opinion everyday physical education failed to motivate those who did not do any sports or did only little in the past. Thus in the case of frequency of doing sports we may notice differences among the positive answers given regarding to everyday physical education. Our researches prove that body culture has outstanding importance in the lives of all ages groups thus even among the ever-changing values everyday physical education has an essential relevance regarding shaping the view of life of the adolescents.

References

Bognár József – Tóth László – Baumgartner Eszter – Salvara Marina I. (2005): Tanulás, célok és testnevelés: Előtanulmány az általános iskola felől. In: IV. Országos Sporttudományi Kongresszus Tanulmánykötet II., 29‒34. Carrel, A. L. and colleagues (2005): Improvement of fitness, body composition, and insulin sensitivity in overweight children in a school-based exercise program: a randomized, controlled study. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine 159 (10), 963–968. Drake, K. M. and colleagues (2012): Influence of sports, physical education, and active commuting to school on adolescent weight status. Pediatrics 130 (2), 296 - 304. Halmai Réka – Németh Ágnes (2010): Fizikai aktivitás es szabadidős tevékenységek. In. Ágnes Németh - András Költő (eds.): Serdülőkorú fiatalok egészsége és életmódja 2010. Az Iskoláskorú gyermekek egészségmagatartása című, az Egészségügyi Világszervezettel együttműködésben zajló nemzetközi kutatás 2010. évi felméréséből készült nemzeti jelentés Budapest: Országos Gyermekegészségügyi Intézet Kirk, D. (1998). Schooling bodies: school practice and public discourse 1880 - 1950. London: Leicester University Press LIM, S. S.and et. (2012): A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990–2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. Lancet, 380 (9859), 2224–60. Mather, A. S. and colleagues (2002): Effects of exercise on depressive symptoms in older adults with poorly responsive depressive disorder: randomised controlled trial. British Journal of Psychiatry 180, 411 – 415. Mikulán Rita (2013): Az iskolai testnevelés szerepe és jelentősége az egészségfejlesztésben. Új Pedagógiai Szemle 63 (7-8), 48 - 69. Morgan, C.F. – Beighle, A - Pangrazi, R.P. (2007): Coordinated school health programs and academic achievement: A systematic review of the literature. Journal of School Health 77, 589-600. National Association for Sport and Physical Education (2003): Parents’ views of children’s health and fitness: A summary of results. Reston Strong, W. B.- Malina, R. M.- Blimkie, C. J. R. (2005): Evidence based physical activity for schoolage youth. Journal of Pediatrics 14, 732–737. Perényi Szilvia (2014): A magyar fiatalok sportolási szokásai. In. Szilvia Perényi ed.) A mozgás szabadsága! A szabadidősport társadalmi, gazdasági és egészségügyi megközelítései. Elméletek és kutatási eredmények a gyakorlat szolgálatában. Debrecen: Debreceni Egyetem Gazdaságtudományi Kar. 48 – 64. Rose, N. S. (1990). Governing the soul. New York: Free Association Books. Telema, R. - Yang, X. - Viikari, J. - Valimaki, I. - Wanne, O. - Raitakari, O. (2005): Physical activity from childhood to adulthood: A 21-year tracking study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 9., 267–273.

Author Information

Gábor Fintor (presenting / submitting)

University of Debrecen

Doctoral School Of Humanities, Doctoral Programme of Socio-Historical Connections of Education and Culture

Nyírtelek

József Szabó

University of Debrecen, Hungary

Ágoston Nagy