Students' opinion on Physical Education and School: An association with academic performance

The aims of this study were: (i) to characterize students' opinion on Physical Education (PE) and on the School and (ii) to analyze the associations between opinion about PE, gender, age, and academic performance. The sample was composed by 599 students (264 boys and 335 girls), aged 10 to 22 years (14.76 +/- 2.42). A subsample of 154 students (76 boys and 78 girls, 14.33 +/- 2.14) were evaluated in academic performance. The students' opinion about PE and the School was evaluated through a questionnaire with a Likert scale response. The academic performance assessment was based on the curricular evaluation at the end of the 3rd period. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to test the normality of the distributions of the variables. Student's t-test was used to determine the differences between groups in variables with normal distribution and Pearson correlations to study the associations. The students' opinion regarding PE was mostly positive (70%). Lower values were found in relation to the opinion on School (40.8%). The opinion about PE was influenced by the grade achieved in the subject, but was not influenced by the overall academic performance. With increasing age, boys like PE and School less and less. Further research on the reasons underlying the results obtained can contribute to the acknowledgment of PE as a powerful instrument to dynamize changes in the pedagogical process in Schools.