Attitudes of Elementary Schools Pupils to the Physical and Sport Education

The aim of the research was to find out the attitudes of the pupils of the seventh, eighth and ninth year-classes of the elementary schools in Banská Bystrica to the physical and sport education. The research sample comprised 1092 pupils, out of which 584 were boys and 508 were girls. A standardised questionnaire according to Sivák et al. (2000) was used to gather the factual material. The research showed that 475 pupils (43.5%) took positive attitude to the physical and sport education, 531 pupils (48.63%) took indifferent attitude and 86 pupils (7.87%) took negative attitude. The pupils acquired majority of points in the questions focused on the cognitive part of the attitudes. On the contrary, they acquired the least number of points in the questions related to the emotional part of the attitudes. The highest average score of 67.1 points was acquired by the pupils of the 7th year-class, significantly lower value of 61.78 points was acquired by the pupils of the 8th year-class and the lowest value of 61.05 points was acquired by the pupils of the 9th year-class. The Kruskal-Wallis test revealed statistically significant differences (p < 0.01) among the attitudes of the pupils of the 7th and 8th year-classes as well as among the pupils of the 7th and 9th year-classes. Statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) were revealed through the chi-square test also among the attitudes of the boys and girls, while boys acquired the average score of 65.92 points and girls acquired the average score of 61.05 points.