In the master's thesis, we examine endurance, which we define as the functional ability of a person to perform a certain activity for a longer period without having to interrupt it. Endurance is closely related to the cardiovascular and respiratory system and is therefore in modern times, when a sedentary lifestyle prevails, needing special attention even in elementary school. This was particularly evident after the Covid-19 epidemic, when students stayed at home and upon their return to school, they showed a decline in endurance in SloFit tests. This demonstrated the need to enhance the quality of aerobic exercise implementation and planning. Given the different conditions in which elementary schools operate, we wanted to investigate to what extent geographical conditions contribute to more frequent implementation of aerobic activities. The master's thesis's aim was to determine if there are differences in aerobic capacity among students from rural and urban elementary schools due to a better location or environment. We also examined other factors that contribute to the planning and implementation of aerobic exercises, specifically analyzing differences in opinions and planning of aerobic activities between teachers from urban and rural schools.
We analyzed and compared the annual and ongoing lesson plans of selected third-grade teachers, thereby defining the planned amount of endurance exercises in sports. In addition to document analysis, we conducted semi-structured interviews to determine the importance teachers attribute to sports preparation in general, preparation for students' endurance development and physical fitness, and how much and in what way they themselves take care of their own endurance and physical fitness. The aerobic capacity of students was assessed using the Beep test. We found that students from rural schools achieve, on average, more levels (28,2) in the Beep test compared to those from urban schools (23,6). However, the non-parametric Mann-Whitney U-test did not show statistically significant differences (U = 342.000; p = 0.110). Document analysis revealed that due to a uniform administrative framework, there are no major differences between the annual preparations of teachers from rural and urban schools. However, differences were observed in ongoing lesson preparations. The analysis of interviews showed differences in planning, utilization, and incorporation of the natural values of the surrounding environment into sports education. Teachers are unanimous in attributing importance to sports for students' development and defining endurance, which most often occurs in connection with running.
|
