Matej Majeric¹

¹University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Sport, Ljubljana, Slovenia

The Importance of Sport in Students’ Lives and the Frequency of Sport Participation Among Students - Gender Differences

Sport Mont 2016, 14(2), 3-6

Abstract

The main purpose of this research was to analyse the gender differences among students at the University of Ljubljana in the importance of sport in their lives and the frequency of sport participation. The research was done in the 2013 academic year on a random sample of 3% of the students (N = 1390); a questionnaire about students’ lifestyles was used (Majerič, 2013). In this study, two variables were analysed: the importance of sport in students’ lives and the frequency of sport participation; the data were analysed with SPSS for Windows. The basic statistical parameters for both variables were calculated. To calculate the gender differences, a t-test for independent samples and the Mann-Whitney U test were run. For the variable ‘importance of sport in students’ lives’, 61.95% of male and 53.20% of female respondents reported that sport is important and very important in their lives. The gender differences were small but statistically significant (p=0.013). For the variable ‘frequency of participation in sport activity’, 79.61% of male and 77.10% of female respondents reported that they were sport active every day, 4 to 6 times a week or 2 to 3 times a week. The gender differences in this variable were also statistically significant (p=0.000). Our findings and conclusions provide useful guidance to the closer and wider professional public who organize sport programmes for students.

Keywords

sport activity, students, importance, frequency, gender differences

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