Attitudes towards violence and student’s important role in the physical education class

Abstract

School violence is a reality with a strong impact on the educational context. The number of studies conducted on this topic has grown significantly in the last few years. Student’s important role in class plays a fundamental role to understand motivational processes in physical education. However, there is a lack of studies on the connections between these two variables. Thus, the aims of this research project were two: to assess the predictive role of students’ important role in physical education on their attitudes towards violence, and to determine differences based on genre between students’ attitudes towards violence and their important role. A total of 917 students (457 females and 460 males) ages 12 to 18, from eleven secondary schools (42 intact classes) of northern Spain agreed to participate in the study. Participants completed the Questionnaire of Attitudes Towards Violence and the subscale Important Role of the Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire adapted to Physical Education. Negative correlations were found between student’s important role and their attitudes towards violence. Likewise, results of the linear regression analysis showed that student’s important role predicted significantly and negatively their attitudes towards violence. Similarly, significant differences were found based on genre in attitudes towards violence. These results suggest how important is to create educational contexts that can foster task-involving and student-centred climates to prevent school violence and gender discrimination.