Physical education involvement in middle and high School. Comparison between a traditional (Handball) and an alternative sport (Tchoukball)

At middle and high school education, sports should be used as an educational instrument contributing to the development of the curriculum, in addition establishing sports habits in students. Numerous studies affirm that some students at high school only practice sport within the school environment. The main objective of this study was to analyze gender and school year of students interested in a traditional sport (handball), and compare them with students interested in an alternative one (tchoukball). The sample consisted of 184 students from two educational centers aged between 12 and 18 years, of which 104 students (56.5%) belonged to middle school, whereas 80 (43.5%) belonged to high school. Sex distribution was 53.8% (n = 99) boys and 46.2% (n = 85) girls. The instrument used was a questionnaire to analyze participation in physical education classes. For the statistical analysis, non-parametric tests (Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon U) were used, the effect size was calculated and, to determine if there were associations between the different dimensions, Pearson's correlation coefficient was used. The results showed that tchoukball increased students' participation compared to handball, whilst there were no differences between both sports by students' sex and school year.