The main aim of this dissertation is to find out whether preschool children in Slovene-language kindergartens in Italy practise enough sport. With this aim in mind we wanted to record how frequently sport activities are carried out in kindergartens, as well as the length of sport classes and the type of activities children are offered by their educators. Moreover, we wanted to identify what kind of equipment and what venues are available for sport activities in kindergartens and what professional qualifications kindergarten educators have.
The data used in this dissertation was collected through a questionnaire which consisted of 16 multiple-choice questions. The respondents were 32 educators who work in Slovene-language kindergartens in the Italian provinces of Trieste and Gorizia. The data collected was processed using Microsoft Office Excel and presented in graphs and tables.
The results show that more attention should be paid to sport in kindergartens. In two thirds of kindergartens children are offered an adequate number of hours of physical activities, while one third of kindergartens does not offer enough sport activities. The results also reveal that 50% of the respondents have completed a university education and obtained a university degree, while the remaining 50% only have a high-school diploma. Our findings seem to suggest that, when it comes to organising sport activities, educators with a university-level education have more ideas and better professional and organisational skills. Based on our findings it may also be concluded that the equipment and venues available for sport activities in kindergartens are rather poor, which often has a negative impact on the quality of the physical activity practised.
The ultimate aim of this dissertation is to highlight the importance of sport in kindergartens and motivate educators and headmasters to include more physical activity in the curriculum of preschool children.
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