Differences in heart rate between regular and irregular students of faculty of education

The diploma thesis discusses the importance of mental and physical fitness of childcare workers in order for them to be able to perform their chosen profession. We established the physical condition of part-time and full-time students through their heart rate which serves as an indirect indicator of one's physical abilities. We ascertained that regular physical exercise has a positive impact on the development of motor skills and consequently leads to better physical fitness. The research included 54 part-time and 57 full-time students attending their first year at the Faculty of Education in Ljubljana. Students heart rate results obtained by motor skills measurements and customised survey questionnaire on the subject of a healthy lifestyle enabled us to acquire data and proceed with further analysis. We processed the data by means of the SPSS statistical software package. We applied the FREQUENCIES sub-programme in order to calculate the frequencies of individual answers, the DESCRIPTIVES sub-programme was used to calculate descriptive statistics, while correlation between the ordinal and the nominal values was ascertained by the means of the CROSSTABS sub-programme. The correlation between numerical variables was determined through ANOVO (analysis of variance), PEARSON’S CORRELATION (analysis of correlation between variables) and the T-TEST. Statistical significance was verified at the 5% risk level (p=0.05). Our findings show that the heart rate does not differ considerably when comparing part-time and full-time students. This indicates that both groups lead very similar lifestyles and are in a comparable physical condition, as was also confirmed by the survey questionnaire. The heart rate enabled us to establish that students are relatively well prepared for the work of a childcare worker, but it would still be advisable for them to devote more of their time and attention to sports and physical activity in general