LEVELS OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND MOTIVATION IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS. DIFFERENCES IN TERMS OF ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE LINKED TO PHYSICAL-SPORTS PRACTICE

In an educational context, teachers play a key figure in the transmission of healthy lifestyles between which the practice of physical activity (PA) is included. Grounded in self-determination theory and social-ecological model, the aim of this study was to determine the levels of moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) and motivation towards physical activity during leisure time in university students. 901 students (408 men and 493 women; M = 22.59, SD = 3.53) of the Autonomous Community of Extremadura, linked to teaching in Kindergarten, Primary and Secondary schools were involved. They were classified into three groups according to the relation with physical-sports practice. PA levels were measured through the instrument IPAQ-SF (Booth, 2000) and the type of motivation towards physical activity during leisure time with the questionnaire BREQ-3 (Gonzalez-Cutre, Sicila & Fernandez, 2010). The main results found that approximately 50% of students of academic discipline directly related and moderately related to physical-sport practice, reached the level of compliance, both associated with the recommendations of PA practice for adults. Similarly, students related to the physical-sport practice had significantly higher values in the most self-determined forms of motivation with regards to other academic discipline that were moderately or not related with physical-sport practice. The promotion of PA practice in university students seems to be a priority due to low compliance with recommendations, especially those professionals who will be directly related to their professional work with the development of healthy and more active habits in children and adolescents.