Students' opinions about physical education in primary and secondary school

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the students' opinions on physical education in primary and secondary schools in Slovenia. In the theoretical part we presented motor development of children in primary and secondary schools, the importance of physical activities for children and young people and consequences of lack of physical activity. We detaily examined the curriculums for primary and secondary schools, the importance of contents in curriculum, assessment, excusing from physical education courses and an important role of a teacher in implementation of the physical education. We presented the activities, offered by the University in Ljubljana, as well as lectures and workshops on the importance of exercising in tertiary education and adulthood within the same university. 223 students participated in empirical part of thesis. Those students attended elementary and secondary schools in Slovenia. The questionnaire was resolved both in writing or online form. Collected data were processed by using Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. We calculated the frequencies of occurrence of individual responses and expressed them in percentages. Questions of combined type were added to specific themes and arranged in a table. The results of the survey showed that physical education was one of two most popular school courses in primary and secondary schools. Students in general had very positive or positive experiences in physical education and were satisfied with teaching of teachers and sports teachers. Most students liked physical education classes because they could relax and socialize with classmates. Students' favourite sports activities were ball games, both in primary and secondary schools. The results of the questionnaire revealed the shortcomings encountered in physical education courses. Students were mostly unsatisfied with teachers and sports teachers, who were not sufficiently active, did not demonstrate exercises, were not actively involved in the process of teaching and when physical education courses were monotonous. Students in general consider to get sufficient physical activity knowledges to develop good activity habits, carried over into adulthood. They believe that they had a lack of health and nutrition lessons. The vast majority of students rarely excused from physical education courses; in most cases they excused for minor health reasons. Most students support a numerical evaluation of physical education, both in primary schools and secondary schools. Students work out on average 2-3x a week and consider that physical education courses had no effect on their motivation for physical activity in adulthood. In most cases students would not change a physical education curriculum, they consider the physical education to be very important