DO STUDENTS FROM RURAL SETTINGS HAVE MORE POSITIVE ATTITUDES TOWARDS OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES?

Nikola Stojanović, Petar Mitić, Aleksandra Projović, Zvezdan Savić

DOI Number
https://doi.org/10.22190/FUPES211112024S
First page
233
Last page
244

Abstract


The main goal of the present study was to explore if there are any differences in attitudes toward outdoor activities between students from urban and rural areas. Moreover, it was necessary to extract data regarding implementation of certain models of outdoor activities in order to evaluate which models are mostly carried out as extracurricular activities in nature in order to draw valuable conclusions for future practice. The results showed that there were no significant differences between students from urban and rural settings, except in students’ attitudes towards benefits of outdoor activities on proper growth and development in favor of students from rural areas. According to Cohen’s interpretation, a small to moderate effect (Cohen’s d=0.02-0.38) regarding living environment variations was present in the relevant items. Moreover, excursions were the most implemented extracurricular activity at schools, and regarding outdoor activities, outings and athletic cross country were the most dominant. However, outdoor activities like winter and summer outdoor activities, camping, cycling, hiking tours should be implemented in order to potentially improve students’ engagement in physical activity in natural environments. Future studies should be focused on exploring the effect of diverse natural environments, PE teachers’ and practitioners’ competencies, school curriculums, students and parents’ barriers towards outdoor physical activities. This multifactorial approach could probably provide causal relationship, which could clarify this issue.


Keywords

Extracurricular physical activities, natural environment, urban and rural areas

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.22190/FUPES211112024S

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