Physical Activity Review (Aug 2016)
Physical Activity of University Students with Various Study Profile
Abstract
Introduction. The current problem of physical inactivity in population is analysed by professionals in various age categories. One of the groups, not that often observed, are university students, who should be able to present their attitude to regular physical activity as well as its contribution to healthy lifestyle. The aim of the research was to find out the structure of physical activities in university students in various study programmes (teacher programmes, sport programmes) and also to determine their attitude to physical activity and the reasons for (not) including physical activity in daily regimen. Methods. The research group involved students of the Faculty of Physical Educationand Sport, Comenius University (n=53, 26 men and27 women), Faculty of Education, University of Trnava (n=53, only women) aUniversity of P. J. Šafárik inKošice (n=45, 30 men, 15 women). The data were collected by questionnaire with open, semi-open and closed questions. The data were analysed by MS Excel and non-parametric Chi-square test. Results. The students with sports profile presented more positive attitude to physical activity than the other students of other study profile. On the other, hand students of the teacher study profile were least satisfied with the offer of physical activities at their faculty and they would like to perform more activities in their leisure time if they had better conditions. The reasons for not performing physical activity were also various. Students with teacher profile chose not enough time (52%), however, students with sports profile chose their health condition as the priority (37%). The reasons for including physical activity in daily regimen were in the group of teacher students supporting health and body forming, the other groups of students preferred fun and challenge. The time spent with sedentary activities was not different regarding the study profile but regarding sex. The results showed a clear difference between men and women, where the most men chose 1-2 hours of sedentary activities every day, whereas women suggested 3-4 hours of sedentary activities.Conclusion. Our research data confirm the importance of analysing the reasons for performing or not performing physical activities by university students, which could help to create an optimal model of a physical programme for various study profiles. The results suggest that the students of teacher programmes will prefer health-oriented activities with emphasizing body forming, whereas students of sports programmes will prefer activities focused on performance, challenge and experience.
Keywords
