A comparative study of students' motivation to practice sports activities in their leisure time

Abstract

Physical activity is an important part of a healthy lifestyle, which helps to prevent many chronic diseases. Despite the knowledge about the benefits of playing sports and the problems related to lack of exercise, very few people practice physical activity regularly. The present study is part of an extensive research of students’ motivation from Technical University of Cluj-Napoca to practice physical sports activities. The aim of the research was to analyze how students are motivated to practice sports, to remain active and healthy, in a period of their lives when they may be at the beginning of their career, and are tempted to reduce the frequency and the time allocated to these activities. In order to identify the differences and trends among students, in terms of motivation and behavior to practice physical sports activities in their leisure time, we conducted an investigation based on sociological surveys, comparing the results with those obtained in a similar study, which was done also on the student population of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, eight years ago. The survey results show that only about 30% of respondents comply with World Health Organization recommendations for physical activity, specifically do at least 30 minutes of physical activity at least 3-5 times a week. Both the logistic regression and the association test show that male students practice more sports compared to female students. The most important predictor of the probability that students will practice sports more often in the future is the previous participation in such activities.