Health and Sports from the Perspective of Primary School Children

Background: In sports pedagogy, school sport researchers are currently debating the concept of `conveying competences in physical education` (Gogoll, 2014) and the so-called Sports-related Health Competence (Töpfer & Sygusch, 2015).

Aims: The aim of this study is to understand how important the concept of `health` is to primary school children. It will furthermore analyze whether and how primary school children can identify a relation between health and sports.

Methodology: An explorative, qualitative pilot study with 21 children (f=11, age: 7 to 9 years) was conducted. Primary school children were asked about their individual opinion on the importance of health by means of guided interviews.

Results: The answers to the question `What does health mean to you` resulted mostly in body related categories, e.g., absence of disease, to be outdoors, and to avoid chronic inactivity. Only one child considered the ability to solve social tensions as part of being healthy too. The relation between health and sports described by the children can be summed up by different categories, which will be presented.

Discussion and Conclusion: Although primary school children are aware of the relation between sports and health, the respondents limited the relation to physical aspects alone. In view of the current discourse on health, psychosocial aspects also have to be taken into consideration when it comes do Sports-related Health Competence. The current subsequent study mainly focuses on the psychosocial aspects of competence development.