**2. Selected aspects of sports: recreational activity of German school students**

#### **2.1 Material and methods**

#### *2.1.1 Participants*

387 persons at the age of 18 (M = 18.48 0.31 years) from technical colleges and high schools in Bavaria were surveyed, included 91 boys and 97 girls from a large city (more than 1 million inhabitants) as well as 93 boys and 106 girls from a small town (less than 15,000 inhabitants). The research was personally carried out by the author of this work. The youth included in the study was selected in accordance with the rules of random sampling, based on random selection of school classes [8].

#### **2.2 Research methods**

In the diagnostic survey method, a questionnaire technique was used, thanks to which it was possible to obtain written responses from respondents to the questions.

#### *Selected Aspects of Sports: Recreational Activity of German School Students DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97741*

Two research tools were used in the study on the sports-recreational activity of school students. The first of them is the so-called Sport Activity Motive Questionnaire [9], based on the scale of attitudes towards physical activity [10, 11]. The aim of this part of the study was to check the quality of motives of sports-recreation activity in the studied pupils. The questionnaire used in the study consisted of 24 questions. 6 groups containing motivational elements of sports activity were specified. These were: esthetics, health, relaxation, ascetic, social aspects and risk. Each group contained four specific questionnaires for each of them, to which the respondents after giving affirmative answers, identified themselves with a given motive or in the case of negative answers, the given motive was rejected.

The second method used in the study is the so-called Questionnaire of Attitudes and Behaviors Towards Sports Activity (own elaboration, based on Baur and Burrmann [12]). It consists of 6 parts:


#### **2.3 Statistical analysis**

The collected material was subjected to mathematical and statistical analysis using the ROC method (Receiver Operating Characteristic). This method aimed at determining the significance of differences among variables: gender and environmental conditions of the studied youth, as well as determining the value of the relative possibility for participation of respondents in a given activity, their occurrence of a certain behavior or motive, etc. This was determined via the Odds Ratio (OR) [13]. Furthermore, the level of significance was set at p < 0.05.

#### **2.4 Results**

The significance of performing sports within the spectrum of other free time activities among German school students.

The aim of research was to present the most popular forms of free time activities among German school students. The place and importance of practicing sports in the context of other leisure activities was also taken into consideration.

The study results confirm (**Figure 1**) that the most important forms of utilizing free time among the studied German youth, regardless of gender or social origin, are meeting friends (82%), listening to music (81%) and practicing sports (66%).

Based on the results of the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) statistical analysis presented in **Table 1**, it can be concluded that practicing sports is significantly more important for boys than girls (*p* < 0.0001), while the relative possibility to actually participate in this activity, expressed as the Odds Ratio (OR), is almost 1 ½ times greater in boys (OR = 1.42). Similar dependencies are related to computer activities which are much more popular among boys (*p* < 0.0001; OR = 1.59). The greater probability of watching television among the studied boys is also worth mentioning. Although there were no statistically significant differences in this category (*p* = 0.0786), the relative odds of actual participation in this activity is almost 1 ½ times greater in boys than girls (OR = 1.41). The studied girls prefer listening to music (*p* = 0.0298) more than their male colleagues, with the relative possibility of actual participation in this activity being almost twice as high as in the case of boys (OR = 1.96). Statistically significant differences in favor of the examined girls were found for such leisure activities as reading and music (*p* < 0.0001), and the actual participation in these activities determined by the OR values is 1 ½ times higher in the studied girls than in boys (reading: OR = 1.51; music activities: OR = 1.47).

The results of the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) statistical analysis presented in **Table 2** indicate that both boys from large cities and small towns have a similar preference for free time activities, as shown by the absence of statistically significant differences as well as similar opportunities for actual participation in all diagnosed forms of leisure time activities (OR from 1.02 to 1.13). Similarly as in the case of the boys, the tested girls from both backgrounds (**Table 3**) also show similar

#### **Figure 1.**

*Preferred leisure activities among German school students (in percentages).*


#### **Table 1.**

*Preferred leisure activities among German school students (boys: n = 184; girls: n = 203).*

#### *Selected Aspects of Sports: Recreational Activity of German School Students DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97741*


#### **Table 2.**

*Preferred leisure activities among German male school students (large city: n = 91; small town: n = 93).*


#### **Table 3.**

*Preferred leisure activities among German female school students (large city: n = 97; small town: n = 106).*

preferences for free time activities, as indicated by *p* > 0.05 and the OR values (1.02–1.09).

In conclusion, due to sports activity performance, the studied boys are more physically active than their female peers who primarily prefer passive forms of free time activities such as listening to music, socializing or watching television, while the environmental conditions do not influence the preferences for selection of free time activities by the respondents.
