Peculiarities of students‘ physical activity motivation during physical education classes in regard of gender and the importance of university studies

Nowadays physical education at Lithuanian high schools is brought out as an optional subject. High schools choose work modes and amount of the lessons according to personal needs, abilities as well as working conditions and attitude towards these subjects. Lately, the leading trend of reducing the amount of physical education exercise was set; there is no place for this discipline in the teaching plans or study programmes, though in many countries around the world students‘ physical and health state tend to get worse (Poteliūnienė, 2010; Norkus, 2011; Kraučiukonienė et al., 2013). Aiming to increase students’ physical activity during their free time the curriculum of physical education for the first year students has to be headed not only towards the development of physical abilities or increase in functional organism potential but also towards the raise of motivation to live more actively (Strazdienė, Adaškevičienė, 2012). The purpose of the research was to identify motivation peculiarities during physical education first year classes in regard of gender and the importance of studying at the university. Sample volume consists of a representative group of students selected selectively from Vilnius and Kaunas five higher education institutions. 1022 respondents were questioned in order to collect the research data. However, 19 questionnaires were damaged or/and filled in incorrectly. The first and the second researches relied on a written survey, specially designed for the research questionnaire which was composed out of different scales. [...