ALMERIA, Spain, Dec 15, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Physical education teachers
should make students feel capable of doing physical exercise and playing sports
throughout their lives, Spanish researchers say.
Study author David Gonzalez-Cutre of the University of Almeria in Spain examined
the factors that influence students to like sports in physical education
classes. The study, published in the Journal of Teaching in Physical Education,
analyzed the factors that influence whether or not students have a "good vibe"
toward physical education -- technically defined as "dispositional flow" or "an
optimum psychological state that allows people to confront a task with the best
possible psychic conditions."
"If a person manages to reach the flow state while performing the physical
activity he/she will obtain high levels of enjoyment, and entertainment, and
will want to perform it more to experience these sensations again,"
Gonzalez-Cutre says in a statement.
The researchers studied a sample of 779 students -- 358 boys and 421 girls ages
12-16 -- who responded to different questionnaires.
"The fundamental objective of physical education is to manage to make pupils
play sports outside school hours and throughout their life," Gonzalez-Cutre
says. "To achieve this, the person teaching physical education must focus on
effort and personal improvement and not so much on comparison to other
students."
URL: www.upi.com
Copyright 2009 by United Press International