Associations between the Perceived Importance of Physical Education and Group Cohesion in Sec-ondary School Students

Abstract

Physical Education (PE) is seen as knowledge in practice, that is, knowledge acquired through active participation in social practices. The aim of this study is to know the association between the importance of Physical Education and group cohesion in Secondary Education students, analyzing the possible differences according to the gender. 310 students from Extremadura answered three sociodemographic questions, in addition to two other instruments: the Importance of Physical Education scale, consisting of 3 questions, and the Group Cohesion Evaluation Questionnaire, consisting of 9 questions. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to determine the assumption of normality. Finally, nonparametric tests were chosen because this assumption was not met. In this sense, the Mann-Whitney U test was used to examine gender and Spearman's Rho test was used to analyze the association between each of the instruments and gender. Reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha. Some statistical differences were observed between men and women. In addition, these differences may be due to the motivation that students have in the realization of sports practice, therefore, it would be interesting to develop future lines of research. Keywords: Physical Education; importance of Physical Education, group cohesion, secondary education; gender; motivation.

Keywords

• physical education; importance of physical education, group cohesion, secondary education; gender; motivation.