Análisis de las variables relacionadas con el interés por la Educación Física en el alumnado de educación secundaria: ¿cómo fomentarlo?

One of the main goals of Physical Education (PE) is to ensure that children and adolescents acquire physical and sporting habits. The variable interest and, consequently, the enjoyment for PE is related to this objective and, therefore, it is a tool that is of vital interest for teachers of this subject. Therefore, the aims of this study are: (1) to find out students' perceptions of the subject of PE, and (2) to analyse if there are relationships between the enjoyment for PE and different sociodemographic variables related to the perceptions about PE and the students own sporting habits, as well as in their near environment. For this purpose, a questionnaire consisting of different items previously validated in other studies was used. The sample was made by a group of students from the four years of Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO) in a rural school from Valencia, with a mean age of 13.78 (SD = 1.26) years. The results show that, in general, students have good perceptions of PE, giving this subject considerable importance. In addition, statistically significant relationships were found between the students' enjoyment of PE and their parents' physical-sports practice, the importance given by the students to the subject in the culture of the country, the teacher’s behaviour, and their own perceptions to the PE lessons. Therefore, these results may be of interest for PE teachers in order to increase students' interest in these classes and improving their adherence to physical-sports practice. Uno de los objetivos principales de la Educación Física (EF) es conseguir que los niños y adolescentes adquieran hábitos de práctica físico-deportiva. La variable interés, y, por consiguiente, gusto hacia la EF está relacionada con dicho objetivo y, como consecuencia, es una herramienta que resulta de vital interés para los docentes de esta materia. Por lo tanto, los objetivos de este estudio son: (1) conocer las percepciones de los alumnos/as hacia la materia de EF, y (2) analizar si existen relaciones entre el gusto por la EF y diferentes variables sociodemográficas, relacionadas con la valoración de la EF, y los propios hábitos de práctica físico-deportiva del alumnado, así como su entorno cercano. Para ello, se utilizó un cuestionario elaborado por diferentes ítems que habían sido previamente validados en otros estudios. La muestra está compuesta por estudiantes de los cuatro cursos de Enseñanza Secundaria Obligatoria (ESO) de un colegio rural de Valencia, con un