14-18 Years old children attitudes, perception and motivation towards extra curricular physical activity and sport

Abstract

Factors affecting children’s attitudes towards physical activity (PA) and physical education are complex and mediated by a range of variables such as social class, gender and race; body image and physical identity. 1062 high-school students (465 B and 597 G) 14-18 years old from 6 different Public high schools of Albania have fulfilled a questionnaire (EC DG EA), during January-June 2011 (only 6 questions were considered relevant). The aim was to reveal the 14.18 years old students attitudes and perception towards PA and Sport. Results show that: 14.21% e the subject’s engage with PA and sport regularly despite their PA school program. 39% engage with one kind of PA or sport during the week and also 36% are active rarely. B have a higher activation indicator (19.78%) compared with G (9.88%). They are active mostly “for fun” with 35.87% and for “improving their physical image” with 33.08%. Lack of free time (53.57%) and the lack of sport facilities (20.43%) are the main reasons why they don’t engage with PA and sport despite their sport school program. There is a lack of information regarding the benefits of participation in PA and sport for this age. It is very necessary that the local or governmental authorities to create extracurricular PA programs and to offer more sport facilities and opportunities for this group-age. More studies focused on this group age are necessary in order to evaluate which is the most proper PA program for this group-age.