Participação dos estudantes nas aulas de educação física do ensino médio: um estudo transversal

Abstract

Physical Education (PE) is a mandatory subject in Brazil and presents itself as an opportunity to promote healthy habits of practicing physical activity (PA). In this context studies point to low participation of students in PE classes specially in high school, and shortage in the provision of extracurricular physical activities and infrastructure for PA in school. The aim of this research was to analyze the participation of high school students in PE classes and to identify the opportunities for physical activity practice in public schools of Recife/PE. It was a cross-sectional study based on secondary analisys of data from the project “Aulas de Educação Física do ensino médio: um programa de intervenção em escolas públicas estaduais”. Schools from GRE Recife Sul and Norte participated in this research. The schools that attended to the standards of the study were selected and four schools of those were drawn. Every teacher and students of the drawn schools were invited to participate in the study. Questionnaires were applied to collect the data about the students and teachers' sociodemographic characteristics. It was also observed the characteristics of the schools (environment, type, size, extracurricular activities). Descriptive and association analysis were conducted in SPSS. 4 teachers and 800 students replied to the questionnaires. Three out of four teachers were men and only one woman, all of them had specialist title and ages from 32 to 51 years old. 55,8% of the students were female and 59,8% had between 16 and 17 years old. Most of the students went to semi-integral schools (67,4%). The results showed a high percentage of students’ participation (91,6%), and significant association (p=0,001), between the participation and study shift, in this case students that study in integral shift showed higher participation. The age was also an associated factor, younger students participated more when compared to older students. Regarding physical activity opportunities in the school it was found that only two schools had indoor courts and other two had gymnasium. Only one out four schools offered three PE classes per week. It was possible to identify the sociodemographic characteristics, the study shift, the school type as factors that may be associated to students’ participation in PE classes. We pointed the possibility of teaching practice to influence in students’ participation, by classes organization and approaches performed. The infrastructure and extracurricular activities offer are presented in a small amount when offering physical activities opportunities and in PE classes development as well.