Motivation till vad? : En undersökning av elever i årskurs 9 och deras uppfattningar om motivation till ämnet idrott och hälsa ur ett genusperspektiv.

Sammanfattning: The pupils’ motivation towards their studies is something that is frequently debated in all different kind of media and the Swedish Television produced TV- show “Gympaläraren” (2016) is only one example out of many. Then, why do the pupils need to be motivated when it comes to their studies concerning physical education? The Swedish Public health care authority (2016) state that, generally speaking, Swedes have maintained a good level of health. Nevertheless, since 1980 there has been an increase of health related troubles like insomnia, depression, headaches and stomach pain among Swedish youngsters in the ages between 13 and 15 years of age. The results from a report made by the Public health care authority in 2014 has shown that only a small amount of the Swedish youngsters between the previously mentioned ages actually performs some kind of physical activity on their spare time. That is to say, most of them do not achieve the daily recommended amount of physical activity, which is the one hour minimum that has been set by the Public health care authority. The school subject “Physical education and health” provides several hours of physical activity for the pupils, and if the pupils have a low level of motivation to participate in these classes, then they are consequently missing out on these hours. The purpose of this investigation is to find and chart the factors which motivates pupils to participate, or not participate, in the lessons of Physical education and Health. To create a more profound investigation within this area is was decided that the investigation would also examine whether the motivation of the pupils differed depending on the sex of the teacher. The background of the investigation is based on the webpage of the Swedish School Department (2015) as well as Lgr11 (2011), but is also based upon the investigations of Professors of education and pedagogy like Larsson and Redelius. The investigation is made by the help of surveys where the respondents consisted of 103 pupils from six school classes in the ninth grade from a school in the south of Sweden. The results from these surveys show that there are differences between the female and the male pupils’ level of motivation towards the Physical training and health subject. Moreover, these results can be related to the sex of the students’ teacher. Both the female and the male pupils believed that activities that included balls were the most enjoyable activities, and thus probably what motivated the pupils to participate. In addition, the results show that the males are the ones who are the least motivated in dance activities while the women, on the other hand, are least motivated by outside activities.