Recreational Activities in Elementary Physical Education

Abstract

The purpose of this study was the inclusion of appropriate recreational activities in phys-ical education lesson in the elementary school. The sample of the study consisted of 76 stu-dents of the 5th grade, aged 11 years old, 32 in experimental and 44 in control group.The study was conducted through questionnaires and all scales had acceptable levels of internal consis-tency (α>.60). The following scales were used: a) lesson satisfaction in PE (Duda& Nicholls, 1992), b) effort and enjoyment (McAuley, Duncan &Tammen, 1989) and c) leisure-time exer-cise questionnaire (Godin & Shephard, 1997).The results from repeated measures analysis of variance indicated that: і) there were statistically significant differences between measure-ments for enjoyment, and statistically significant interaction between measurement and experimental groups, but there were no statistically significant difference between groups. iі) As for leisure-time physical activity, there were statistically significant differences between mea-surements, and statistically significant interaction between measurement and experimental groups, but there were no statistically significant difference between groups.In conclusion, the selected leisure activities were entertaining for the experimental group. Furthermore, physical activity in leisure time in the experimental group was higher during the second mea-surement, which may mean that these activities can have a positive effect on physical activity in total.