The Interest in Sports Activity among First Year Secondary School Students in the Years 1995–2001

The aim of the research was to determine the tendencies of change in interest in sports activity among students over the period of a few years. In order to achieve this aim, we diagnosed the interest in sports activity among students in particular years (1995 – 2001). The research was conducted seven times in the seven consecutive years (always in the first grade during the first PE lesson in the school year. We diagnosed interest in the cases of 1,693 students (906 female, 787 male) of grade 1 in the Secondary School No. 7 in Wrocław over a period of the consecutive seven years. By means of the Chi-square Pearsoǹ s test and Chi-square test of highest credibility we verified the hypothesis of the independence of interest in sports activity of first-grade students (separately for females and males) and the year when the research was done. It turned out that on the level of significance α = 0.05 the year of the research influenced the choice of 7 forms of sports activity in the case of males, whereas it did not affect the choice of the remaining 14 sport activities. We noticed a slight degree of growth of interest of the boys in basketball, handball and ring-play, whereas it declined in the case of volleyball, badminton and bodybuilding. As a result of the conducted statistical analysis we also noticed that on the level of significance α = 0.05 the year of the research influenced the choice of 12 forms of sports activity in the case of females, whereas it did not affect the choice of the remaining 9. We observed a uniform growing tendency in interest in cycling. We noticed a growing interest of girls in football, gymnastics, tennis, badminton, ring-play, dancing, judo/karate and other forms of sports activity not mentioned in the survey, whereas it declined in the case of skiing, horseback riding, roller skating and archery. Upon conducting the statistical analysis we noticed that interest in sports activity of first-grade secondary school students is subject to change with the subsequent measurements.