The Importance of Basketball for High School Students. Part 1 (Attractiveness Dimension Analysis)

Abstract

Background and Study Purpose. Basketball is an important worldwide sport and is frequently included in the school curriculum at various levels and in leisure activities. This study aims to determine the attractiveness and interest in basketball among high school students, as well as to compare it with other youth sports. Material and Methods. The investigated group consists of 259 high school students (16.97 years), with 135 males and 124 females, 156 urban and 103 rural. All students participated in physical education lessons with basketball topics. Questioning of the students for the component of the attractiveness of playing basketball was done by questionnaire with 14 items and closed answers at the level of this factor. The items were designed using a 5-level Likert scale. The completion of the questionnaires was carried out between November 2023 and January 2024. Results. The mean item values indicate high scores related to the spectacularity of basketball, as well as higher scores compared to track and field and gymnastics. The F values indicate strong influences of gender, but especially of background on students’ choices. Males are significantly happier than females when they have basketball topics in their lessons. For almost all items of the attractiveness factor, those from rural areas give significantly lower mean scores than those from urban areas (P < 0.05), so there is a clear perception gap between these groups. The Gender *Area variables interaction generates significant differences (P < 0.05), but these are only evident for men. Conclusions. Across the entire group, even though basketball scores relatively better on average in terms of attractiveness than the rest of the team games, athletics and gymnastics, soccer remains at the top of high school students’ preferences (47%). We found low values for playing basketball as a leisure activity, as well as for concerns about watching basketball competitions. However, men play basketball in their free time and watch competitions more than women. For men, soccer is the only sport more attractive than basketball, but basketball is more interesting than volleyball, handball, gymnastics and track and field. For women, soccer has a low attractiveness, while basketball, volleyball and gymnastics are more interesting. The differences between urban and rural (the whole group) for the attractiveness dimension are significant and entirely in favour of urban students. Urban students are more attracted, prefer, get involved, practice, and look forward more to basketball topics in curricular and extracurricular activities. The interaction between variables shows much larger differences between urban boys vs rural boys, but more balanced scores are found for urban girls vs rural girls.

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