Analysis of the Motivation of Students of the Last Cycle of Primary School in the Subject of Physical Education

Abstract

Motivation is the impulse that leads people to perform certain actions and persist in them to achieve certain objectives. Motivation is important in all areas of life and has a very important role in academics, where it can be considered essential for learning motor skills and performance. In this study, we intended to evaluate motivation in the Physical Education classroom among students in the last grade of elementary school. For this purpose, a total of 545 students aged between 9 and 13 years were selected to take the CMEF-EP questionnaire through a tablet and by means of the Google Forms application. The different relationships between items and dimensions were analyzed using the Mann–Whitney U test. A Spearman’s test was used to explore the relationship between dimensions and age. The results showed that the predominant motivation in the classroom is intrinsic motivation and that demotivation is practically nonexistent. In addition, it was found that there are differences between the genders in some of the categories and that there are no differences in the location of the study center. Therefore, it can be said that it is essential to generate a motivational climate based on the subject and his or her interests in order to favor intrinsic motivation.