Jag är inte med om de andra inte är med : en studie om motivation till idrott och hälsa i två yrkesförberedande program

Sammanfattning: Abstract Aim The aim of the study is to investigate the vocational program student’s motivation in physical education and to explore the reasons for the lack of participation during a lesson.   How do students describe their motivation towards physical education? What does motivate the students to participate or to not participate?   Method A qualitative interview method was conducted with eleven participants consisting only of vocational program students, who have not been fully participating in the physical education lessons. The theories, that are used to analyze, are Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and the sociocultural perspective on motivation including the intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.   Results The results indicate that students can participate partially and fully in physical education lessons although their motivation is still low and lacking. Student thinks that physical education is an important subject, but they have still low and lacking motivation, which is created due to the surroundings demotivating students’ minds. Most of the students have a positive attitude towards the subject in itself; however from their current context their attitude is negative. Attendance and participation do not show clearly students’ intrinsic motivation, because of their participation is based solely on passing the subject.   Conclusion From the theoretical framework, students’ different needs are not achieved and there is no positive interaction in classes, which is expressed through lack of motivation. Social class and society’s expectation also places a part of affecting students’ motivation. Classmates and teacher have a significant impact towards students’ motivation, which can be either positive or negative. These factors are interpreted to have a negative influence in this case. In other words, there is not enough of positive influence for extrinsic motivation to contribute change in behavior through intrinsic motivation.