Motivação dos alunos do Ensino Secundário em relação à prática da disciplina de Educação Física

Abstract

This report describes the School Placement carried out in the 2nd year of the master's degree in Teaching Physical Education (PE) in Basic and Secondary Education at the Faculty of Sport at the University of Porto. The Professional Internship took place at Agrupamento de Escolas de Rio Tinto between September 15, 2022 and June 3, 2023, with a total of 102 hours as part of the completion of the 2nd Cycle course in Teaching Physical Education in Basic and Secondary Education. During the School Placement, the focus was on the acquisition of essential professional skills for the teaching career, characterized by critical and reflective performance. During my journey, I faced the challenge of dealing with the lack of interest of some students in my classes. As such, I looked for strategies to make classes more attractive by incorporating dynamic and personalized activities, as well as developing an empathetic connection with students. By overcoming this obstacle, I developed communication and leadership skills, and I felt gratified to see students engaging and discovering the pleasure of physical activities. The internship was a continuous learning journey, turning challenges into motivation to develop a meaningful learning environment. A qualitative study was also carried out to assess the motivation of my students in relation to the PE subject. The sample consisted of 28 12th grade students from Rio Tinto Secondary School, to whom an interview was applied. The results of this study revealed that, in general, students are motivated, referring to several positive benefits of practicing PE, and that it promotes practice outside the school environment, family support and good relationship with the teacher. The data also revealed that overall, students are more extrinsically motivated than intrinsically motivated. As for the strategies of the PE teacher, it would be important to bet on some modalities to the detriment of others, introduce more technology in the activities carried out with them, diversify the materials used and introduce new ones, bet on classes outside the school grounds or outdoors whenever possible and check the conditions of the physical space where the classes are held.