Abstract des Autors

The aim of this research was to investigate the 8th grade pupils’ kinesthetic learning style relationships with their physical activity and athletic identity. The research object – the 8th grade pupils’ kinesthetic learning style relationships with their physical activity and athletic identity. Hypothesis. Pupils with more strongly expressed kinesthetic learning style are more physically active and have higher athletic identity than pupils with more strongly expressed visual or auditory learning styles. Methods. The participants were all 8th grade schoolchildren (n=67, of them boys – 41) of X school of one Lithuanian city. To evaluate their learning styles (visual, auditory, and kinesthetic) the electronic questionnaire “What is my learning style?”, made of 40 questions/statements with optional answers, was used (Sičiūnienė et al., 2012). After answering all the questions, the summarized results would be provided, i.e. next to each learning style a sum of answers (a score) would be indicated. The learning style that received the highest amount of chosen answers would be nominated as dominating. Another questionnaire was used to assess the leisure time physical activity (PA) of adolescents (Godin, Shephard, 1997) and their athletic identity (AI) (Anderson et al., 2007). The following components of AI were evaluated: appearance, competence, importance/commitment, and encouragement/support from others (parents, friends, teacher/other adult). Statistical analysis: Standard descriptive methods were used to analyze research data, i.e. means, standard deviations, percentage. Statistical comparisons between gender groups were made using analysis of variance (ANOVA). Pearson product moment correlation coefficients were computed to evaluate the relationships of kinesthetic learning style with PA and AI. The level of significance was set at p<0.05. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 17.0 package for Windows. Results. It was found that all of the respondents’ (8th grade pupils’) dominant (preferential) learning style was kinesthetic. Girls had stronger expressed visual learning style than boys (11.2 ± 2.8 and 9.2 ± 2.1 score, respectively; p<0.01). It was found that more than a half of the subjects were not sufficiently physically active in their spare time and do not meet the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations, i.e. to be physically active for at least an hour every day, when the intensity level of the activity is moderate-to-vigorous. Higher percentage of girls than boys were not enough physically active (69.2 and 58.5%, respectively). Girls more often than boys take part in low intensity physical activity (p<0.01). The total athletic identity (AI) of all participants was estimated to be higher than the average, i.e. beyond 3 points out of 5. In respect to gender, no statistically significant differences in total AI were found, although girls value higher than boys the AI component “Support from friends” to be physically active (3.5 ± 0.7 and 2.8 ± 1.0 points, respectively; p<0.01). There were no significant correlations between adolescents’ kinesthetic learning style and their physical activity, nevertheless two components of AI (i.e. “Support from friends” and “Encouragement from teachers”) were related to kinesthetic learning style of 8th grade students (r=0.27; p<0.05). Conclusions. The hypothesis of this study was confirmed partly, because statistically significant associations of kinesthetic learning style of 8th grade schoolchildren were found only with two AI components, but not with physical activity.