what is gymnastics in physical education essay

Gymnastics in Physical Education

Gymnastics is an attractive, fascinating and popular sport. The word ‘Gymnastics’ is derived from the Greek Word Gymnus, which means ‘Naked body’. The exercises performed by hunk body is called gymnastics. These exercises used to be done for the health of the body.

Rules for Playing Gymnastics as Sports

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Gymnastics is an ancient and basic sport. Johann Guts Muths (1759-1839) who is known as the great grandfather of Gymnastics, introduced it into the Persian schools. It can be said that Germany rediscovered Gymnastic and owing to that the International Gymnastic Federation was formed in 1881. The first competition of gymnastics was held in Germany in 1884. It was included for men in the first modern Olympic Games which were held in Athens in 1896. Gymnastics for women was included in the Olympic Games in 1928. It was included in Asian Games in 1974 in Teheran Asian Games. The first World Cup of Gymnastics was introduced in 1975.

• Gymnasts present themselves to a judge before and after the event. They start their exercise when the signal is given to them. If during the exercise, they fall, they have 30 seconds to remount and continue.
• Gymnasts are not allowed to leave the arena during competition without permission.
• Women compete in four artistic events i.e. vaulting horse, uneven bars, balancing beam and floor exercises. Men compete in six artistic events i.e. floor exercises, vaulting horse, pommel horse, roman rings, horizontal bars and parallel bars.
• In team competition 6 gymnasts of each team perform a compulsory and an optional exercise on each apparatus. Five highest scores are added to get the team total.
• A gymnast must wear proper attire. He may wear bandages and slippers or socks. He/she must begin the exercise within 30 seconds once he/she is given signal. On the horizontal bar and roman rings, a coach or another gymnast may assist a gymnast into a hanging position.
• Breakdown of points are given below:

Apparatus, Beam, Flank, Front, Horizontal Bar, Mount, Spring Board, Mat, Parallel Bars, Vault, Turn Circle, Pommel etc.

• 1. National Championship
• 2. Federation Cup
• 3. All India Inter University
• 4. School National
• 5. National Games
• 6. Asian Games
• 7. Olympic Games
• 8. China Cup

(1) Nelli Kim (2) Karin Jaz (3) Olga Korbut (4) Dov Lupi (5) Elvira Saadi (6) Nadia Comaneci

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The Role of Gymnastics in Physical Education Programs

Gymnastics plays a pivotal role in physical education programs as it offers a wide range of benefits for students. This article explores the importance of gymnastics in enhancing physical fitness, developing motor skills, promoting flexibility and strength, and fostering overall well-being. Discover how gymnastics not only improves students’ physical abilities but also instills valuable life skills such as discipline, perseverance, and self-confidence. Dive into the world of gymnastics and uncover its significant contributions to physical education programs.

Benefits of Gymnastics in Physical Education Programs

Development of strength and flexibility.

Gymnastics plays a crucial role in physical education programs as it contributes significantly to the development of strength and flexibility. Through various exercises and movements, gymnastics helps individuals build strong muscles and increase their overall physical strength. The repetitive actions and routines performed in gymnastics training gradually enhance muscle endurance and power, leading to improved strength levels.

Additionally, gymnastics also focuses on enhancing flexibility. The stretching exercises performed in gymnastics classes help individuals increase their range of motion and improve overall flexibility. Flexibility is essential not only for executing gymnastics skills but also for preventing injuries and maintaining optimal physical health.

Improvement of balance and coordination

Another significant benefit of incorporating gymnastics into physical education programs is the improvement of balance and coordination. Gymnastics requires individuals to maintain balance while executing various complex movements and holds. By consistently practicing gymnastics, students develop a heightened sense of body awareness, which greatly improves their balance and coordination skills.

Through movements such as walking on a balance beam or performing handstands, gymnasts learn to control their bodies and coordinate their movements effectively. This enhanced ability to balance and coordinate movements not only benefits them in gymnastics but also carries over to other physical activities and sports.

Enhancement of cognitive skills

In addition to physical benefits, gymnastics also has a positive impact on cognitive skills. The mental demands of gymnastics routines require individuals to focus, concentrate, and make quick decisions. By constantly challenging their minds during training, gymnasts develop enhanced cognitive skills, such as improved memory, concentration, and problem-solving abilities.

Furthermore, gymnastics promotes the development of discipline and perseverance. Gymnasts must follow specific routines, adhere to rules, and consistently work towards achieving their goals. These qualities translate into improved discipline and perseverance, which are valuable life skills that can be applied beyond the gym.

In conclusion, gymnastics offers numerous benefits when included in physical education programs. It contributes to the development of strength and flexibility, improves balance and coordination, and enhances cognitive skills. By incorporating gymnastics into physical education curricula, students can enjoy the holistic advantages of this sport, leading to improved physical fitness and overall well-being.

Inclusion of Gymnastics in Physical Education Curricula

Gymnastics is an essential component of physical education curricula due to its numerous benefits for students. By incorporating gymnastics into PE classes, students can develop physical strength, flexibility, balance, and coordination. Additionally, gymnastics helps improve cognitive skills such as concentration, discipline, and problem-solving abilities. This article will explore the importance of including gymnastics in physical education curricula, focusing on its integration into lesson plans, adaptation for various skill levels, and promotion of teamwork and sportsmanship.

Integration into Lesson Plans

Incorporating gymnastics into lesson plans allows students to experience a wide range of movements and exercises that contribute to their overall physical development. PE teachers can plan a series of progressive lessons that introduce students to basic gymnastic skills such as rolls, handstands, cartwheels, and eventually more advanced moves like flips and tumbles. By integrating gymnastics into lesson plans, students have the opportunity to learn proper techniques, improve body control, and enhance their overall physical fitness.

Adaptation for Various Skill Levels

One of the key advantages of gymnastics in physical education curricula is its adaptability to accommodate students of different skill levels. Gymnastic exercises can be modified to meet the capabilities and needs of individual students. PE teachers can design activities that cater to beginners while also providing challenges for more advanced students. This inclusive approach ensures that all students can participate and progress at their own pace, fostering a sense of accomplishment and boosting their self-confidence.

Promotion of Teamwork and Sportsmanship

Gymnastics in physical education programs promotes teamwork and sportsmanship among students. When practicing gymnastics, students often work in pairs or small groups, requiring them to communicate, cooperate, and support each other. Collaborative activities such as synchronized routines or group performances encourage students to trust and rely on their teammates, fostering a sense of unity and camaraderie. Furthermore, gymnastics competitions provide opportunities for students to showcase their skills while demonstrating respect for their peers and competitors, promoting good sportsmanship.

In conclusion, the inclusion of gymnastics in physical education curricula is highly beneficial for students. Its integration into lesson plans allows for progressive learning and the development of various physical skills. Moreover, the adaptability of gymnastics caters to students of different skill levels, ensuring inclusivity and individual progress. Lastly, gymnastics promotes teamwork, collaboration, and sportsmanship among students, fostering important social skills. By incorporating gymnastics, physical education programs can provide a well-rounded and enriching experience for students.

Safety Measures and Equipment in Gymnastics

Use of proper padding and mats.

In order to ensure the safety of gymnasts, it is crucial to use proper padding and mats. Gymnastics involves a variety of movements that require jumping, flipping, and tumbling, which can put significant stress on the body. Therefore, using high-quality mats and padding is essential to absorb the impact and reduce the risk of injuries.

The mats used in gymnastics are designed to provide cushioning and support for the gymnasts during their routines. Thick, durable mats are used on the floor to provide a soft landing surface, especially for high-impact moves such as flips and landings. These mats are made of high-density foam that can absorb shocks effectively, protecting the gymnasts from potential injuries.

Additionally, specialized landing mats are used for apparatuses such as the vault and balance beam. These mats are strategically placed to provide extra protection during landings and dismounts. They are designed to absorb the impact and distribute the force evenly, minimizing the risk of sprains or fractures.

Training on proper technique and form

Proper technique and form are crucial in gymnastics to prevent injuries and maximize performance. Gymnasts must undergo training to learn and master the correct techniques for various skills and movements. This training not only focuses on executing the moves successfully but also emphasizes the importance of maintaining proper body alignment and positioning.

Training on proper technique and form helps gymnasts develop better body control and awareness, reducing the risk of accidents. It teaches them how to distribute their weight properly, engage the correct muscles, and execute movements with precision. By following these techniques, gymnasts can minimize the strain on their joints and muscles, decreasing the chances of overuse injuries or falls.

Coaches and trainers play a vital role in ensuring that gymnasts receive proper training on technique and form. They provide guidance, corrections, and feedback to help gymnasts improve their skills while maintaining safety. Regular practice and repetition under the supervision of trained professionals ensure that gymnasts develop good habits and perform movements in a safe and controlled manner.

Supervision and spotting by trained instructors

To mitigate the risks associated with gymnastics, trained instructors provide constant supervision and spotting during training sessions and competitions. Spotting refers to the act of physically assisting or supporting a gymnast during challenging moves, particularly those that involve a high risk of injury.

Trained instructors have the expertise to anticipate potential accidents and intervene promptly. They closely monitor gymnasts to ensure they are performing skills correctly and safely. In cases where a gymnast loses control or is at risk of falling, instructors can step in quickly to prevent accidents or minimize the impact of a fall.

Spotting is particularly important during advanced or complex moves, where the risk of injury is higher. Instructors use their knowledge and experience to provide physical assistance while guiding the gymnast through the movement. This extra support not only enhances safety but also boosts the gymnast’s confidence and allows them to attempt more challenging skills.

In conclusion, incorporating safety measures and utilizing appropriate equipment is vital in gymnastics. The use of proper padding and mats, training on proper technique and form, and the supervision and spotting by trained instructors all contribute to creating a safe environment for gymnasts to excel in their physical education programs.

In conclusion, gymnastics plays a crucial role in physical education programs by providing students with a wide range of physical and cognitive benefits. Through the practice of gymnastics, students develop strength, flexibility, coordination, and balance, all of which contribute to their overall physical fitness. Additionally, gymnastics helps improve cognitive skills such as focus, discipline, and problem-solving, promoting mental well-being. By incorporating gymnastics into physical education programs, schools can offer students a comprehensive approach to physical fitness and instill lifelong habits of exercise and healthy living. With its numerous advantages, gymnastics remains an essential component of any well-rounded physical education curriculum.

• Pete Charrette

What Is Gymnastics in Physical Education? Exploring 20 Educational Gymnastics Skills, and Activities for PE Classes

Educational gymnastics and tumbling activities in physical education classes provide students with a fun and exciting way to learn new static and dynamic movement skills. They also help develop coordination, agility, balance, strength, flexibility, and other valuable motor skills. Through gymnastics, students can experience the thrill of mastering their bodies while constructing patterns of movement that require skill and precision. Additionally, gymnastics encourages physical activity and teamwork, helping students become more active and stay healthy.

Pics by Kelly Brown @LovePrimaryPE

Because gymnastics isn't widely taught or focused on during teacher training, it can feel daunting for educators who are asked to teach the subject in a school setting. This blog will help to empower you and give you the necessary tools to teach with confidence. You'll find lots of resources, tips, and tricks throughout this blog that will point you in the right direction.

Pic by Kelly Brown @LovePrimaryPE

Why should I incorporate gymnastics into my PE program?

There are many solid reasons to include gymnastics in your physical education classes. Participating in gymnastics can help students learn new movement skills, improve their coordination and agility, and stay physically fit. Gymnastics can help students improve posture, as well as focus, self-discipline and perseverance. All of these elements work together to create a strong foundation for physical fitness.

Check out some of these other amazing benefits of including gymnastics as a unit or activity in PE.

Educational gymnastics and tumbling...

1) Strengthens Muscles: Gymnastics classes can help students build muscle strength and density, leading to better overall health.

2) Improves Flexibility: Gymnastics improves flexibility, which can help kids remain physically active and reduce their risk of injury. It also helps them become more agile and coordinated in other activities they participate in.

3) Enhances Balance: By learning gymnastic skills, students can improve their balance by developing better control over their bodies and muscles. Mastered balancing, both static or dynamic is vital for becoming proficient in many other sports.

4) Increases Coordination: As gymnastics involves different movement patterns, students can learn how to move efficiently by coordinating the body’s movements in a balanced way.

5) Develops Self-discipline: Learning gymnastics tasks teaches students the value of hard work and dedication, helping them to achieve their goals.

6) Helps with Self-Confidence: By successfully mastering gymnastics skills, students can build confidence in themselves and also learn how to work together with others on various movement tasks.

Educational Gymnastics Stations Video

Does teaching educational gymnastics help address PE standards?

Not only is learning gymnastic skills a fun way to get students active, but it can also help them master coordination, balance, and strength. This helps them address SHAPE America's Standard 1 , which reads: "The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns." The gymnastics and tumbling movements and skills you choose to use during your PE lessons can easily meet any national, state, or district standards.

Tips for implementing gymnastics skills in your PE lessons

Now that you know some of the benefits of gymnastics, here are some tips for implementing gymnastics into your PE lesson:

Consider your students' abilities when making lesson plans: When planning gymnastics lessons, it is important to consider your students’ physical abilities and skills. Incorporating gymnastic activities that are appropriate for the grade level of your class can help ensure a safe experience for all students. You should also keep in mind any special needs or accommodations that need to be made.

Warm Up Properly: Before engaging in any gymnastic physical activities, make sure to warm up with light calisthenic exercises and stretching. This will help reduce the risk of injury for your students.

Focus on safety: Safety should be the top priority when teaching gymnastics in PE. Make sure that your students are properly supervised, and that all gymnastic activities are done on gymnastics mats or padded surfaces.

Pic by Tanner Roos @Mr RoosPE

Keep it simple: Start with teaching basic gymnastic movement skills such as: jumping, crawling, balancing, and rolling. Once your students have mastered the basics, then you can introduce more advanced gymnastic movements such as cartwheels or handstands.

Limit the lines: Keep your mat lines as short as possible to increase students' time on task! Avoid having students line up side by side and instead have them spread out across the gym space. This helps to prevent any potential accidents that can occur when multiple gymnasts move at the same time.

Provide instruction and allow choice: Make sure to provide instruction when introducing gymnastics and tumbling activities. Break down each gymnastic skill into small steps. Progressive movements should be differentiated to meet the needs of all students. To do this, allow them some choice in what stunts they perform. For those who need a challenge, you can provide more advanced gymnastic tasks; while for those needing a bit more support or safety reinforcement, use gymnastics activities that are appropriate for their skill level.

Use demonstrations and visuals: Demonstrate gymnastic movements and provide visuals such as illustrations, photographs or videos when introducing gymnastics activities. This can help reinforce your verbal instructions and also give students a better understanding of the task at hand.

Keep it fun and creative: Students learn when the are having fun! Keep gymnastics lessons fun and exciting by coming up with creative activities or fun challenges incorporating gymnastic movements. Bring in other PE equipment into the mix such as bean bags, scarves, hula-hoops, or balance beams. You can also use music and games to help motivate and inspire your students during gymnastics activities. Encourage collaboration among students to build teamwork skills.

Video by Brooke Gustavel and Ami Crawford @TESPhysEd

Offer positive feedback: Offer positive words of encouragement and recognition when they perform gymnastic skills and movements correctly. This will help to build their confidence and make gymnastics more enjoyable for them.

20 Educational Gymnastics Stunts to Teach in PE

Gymnastics is a great way to supplement physical education activities and create a more well-rounded approach to learning. The following 20 easy-to-implement jumps, crawls & animal walks, rolls and balances & inverts can be utilized in a PE class gymnastics or tumbling lesson.

Assign these gymnastics and tumbling activities to your students as solo tasks, or have them work in small groups where they take turns teaching each other (on gymnastics) at designated stations around the learning area. The activity can also be done with the entire class as one large gymnastics and/or tumbling session under the guidance of a teacher.

Tuck Jumps- Jump up using a “2 foot” take-off and bring your knees up to your chest. Touch the front of your knees with your hands in the air. Land softly on your feet and bend your knees when you land. Repeat the tuck jump as you move down the mat.

Star Jumps- Jump up using a “2 foot” take-off and spread your arms and straight legs out in the air. Make the shape of a 4- point star in mid-flight. Land softly on your feet and bend your knees when you land. Repeat the star jump as you move down the mat.

Video by Christine Mason @LPESVB

Straddle Jumps - Jump up using a “2 foot” take-off and kick your legs out to a straddle position in the air. Bring your hands to your toes. Land softly on your feet and bend your knees when you land. Repeat the straddle jump as you move down the mat.

Half turns- Start at the front of a mat facing forward. Use a 2-foot takeoff and jump 180 degrees (jump half turn), then land facing the direction you just jumped from. Continue jumping 180 degrees as you travel down the mat.

Full Turns- Start at the front of a mat facing forward. Use a 2-foot takeoff and jump 360 degrees landing facing the same way you started. Continue jumping 360 degrees as you travel down the mat.

2- Crawls and Animal Walks

Army Crawl- Lay face down on the front of the mat. Stay low to the ground and work your way down the mat using your elbows and knees. Wriggle your body back and forth as you move.

Bear Crawl- Start the crawl on your hands and feet. Walk down the mat using your hands and feet to propel your body. The same hand and foot move together at the same time. Do not crawl on your knees

Lame Dog Run - Start the walk on your hands and one foot. Walk or run down the mat using both hands and only one leg to propel your body. Your foot/leg will bounce behind you as you walk your hands down the mat.

Seal Walk- Start at the front of the mat on your stomach. Use your arms (hands on the mat) to drag the rest of your body down to the end of the mat. Pull and wriggle your body but don’t use your feet as you travel.

Inchworm- Start at the front of a mat in a push-up position. Keep your legs straight and walk your toes up to your hands. Then walk you arms back out to a push-up position. Repeat your straight leg walk to your hands. Continue this 2-part motion down the mat

Pencil Roll- Lay sideways with your arms stretched up outside your head. Keep your body tight and straight. Roll sideways all the way down the mat. Readjust your body if you roll off the mat.

Egg Roll- Lay sideways and grab your knees with your hands and pull your self into a tight ball. Stay in a ball and roll sideways down the mat. Readjust your body if you roll off the mat.

Forward Roll - Start in a full squat with your hands out in front. Tuck your chin into your chest. Push with your legs and place your hands down on the mat first. Roll on the back part of your head and stay in a tight ball grabbing your knees as you roll. Let your momentum carry you back to your feet.

Fish Flop- Sit in an “L sit” position on the mat. Put your arms out to the side. Tuck your head to one side. Roll backward over your opposite shoulder. Flop over on to your belly with your body and legs straight.

Backward Roll- Start backward in a full squat with your hands beside your ears and your palms up. Roll backward until your head and hands touch the mat and then push up evenly with your hands. Lift your head slightly off the mat (by pushing with your hands) while you roll in a tight ball. Let your momentum carry you back to your feet.

4- Balances and Inverts

V-Sit Balance- Sit down on a mat in a “pike” position with your legs our front. Simultaneously, lift your legs and your arms up in the air to form a “V” shape. Hold that position for as long as possible, then rest and try it again.

2 and 3 Foot Balances- Find a place on the mat to balance. Get in a balance position using 2 or 3 body parts and hold the position as long as possible. Readjust your body position if you lose balance. Try a variety of balance poses.

Shoulder Stand - Sit in an “L sit” position on the mat. Put your arms by your sides. Roll back until your body and legs are straight up in the air. Prop up on the back of your shoulders. Keep tight and rigid. Point your toes

Pic by Christopher Sanders @SandersCB3

Tripod- Get in a full squat position. Put your head & hands down on the mat forming a triangle shape on the mat (head in front). Slowly bring your knees to your elbows and balance on your forehead and hands. Readjust your body if you start to tilt.

Head Stand- Begin the balance with a 3 point tripod (triangle shape). From the tripod, slowly lift your legs up into the air. Keep your body straight and tight. Tuck your chin to your chest to roll out of the headstand balance.

Final thoughts

Incorporating gymnastics into physical education can have a positive impact on your students’ physical, social, and emotional well-being. Gymnastics can be adapted for any age group and provides an enjoyable workout for students. By following the tips and using the gymnastic stunts listed above, you can create an engaging PE lesson that will benefit your students for years to come.

Thank you for taking the time to read about gymnastics in physical education. I truly hope this blog post will help you as you plan gymnastics lessons for your PE class. Have fun!

*SHAPE America. (2013). National Standards for K-12 Physical Education. Reston, VA: Author.

Need resources?

Do you need some PE Tumbling Mat Challenge Cards that can easily help you teach movements and stunts like the ones discussed in the educational gymnastics PE article written above? Would it help to have easy-to-implement visuals that include detailed instructions and state-of-the-art graphics? Cap'n Pete's Power PE has you covered!

Fill in the form below to download 12 FREE fun and active PE Tumbling Mat Challenge Cards with a variety of gymnastic movement skills to teach in your physical education classes.

The set is a PDF digital download that includes twelve visuals (cards) that teachers can use for teaching educational gymnastics in a lesson. The cards make it EASY for physical educators to help guide students through a variety of engaging mat-based gymnastic movements and they provide opportunities for them to develop skills in jumping, crawling, rolling, balancing and working with others.

This freebie set will be sure to enhance your PE curriculum for years!

If you REALLY want to expand your physical education program's gymnastics resource stockpile, check out Cap'n Pete's, PE Educational Gymnastics Station Signs and Task Cards- 36 Instructional Visuals. Inside this packet you will find 36 printable signs/cards that can be used to teach a variety of educational-gymnastics and tumbling skills, using a variety of teaching styles and learning formats (i.e. stations, peer teaching, practice style, etc.). Each sign/card is uniquely designed to display and describe specific jumping, crawling, rolling and balancing skills commonly used by practicing physical educators when teaching an educational gymnastics or tumbling unit during PE.

You can download them from either of the following platforms: Cap'n Pete's Power PE Website or Teachers Pay Teachers- Cap'n Pete's TPT Store

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The Tokyo Olympics

Smithsonian's Guide to the Games

History | July 26, 2021

A History of Gymnastics, From Ancient Greece to Tokyo 2020

The beloved Olympic sport has evolved drastically over the past 2,000 years

Meilan Solly

Associate Editor, History

Two months before the Tokyo 2020 Olympics , Simone Biles —the reigning women’s gymnastics all-around champion— made history by becoming the first woman to successfully perform a Yurchenko double pike in competition. A move “considered so perilous and challenging that no other woman has attempted it in competition,” per the New York Times , the skill found the 24-year-old launching herself toward a stationary vaulting horse at speeds of up to 15 miles per hour and flipping her body through the air a full two-and-a-half times.

Landing this vault is far from the only example of Biles making gymnastics history . Widely considered the greatest female gymnast of all time , the athlete was the first to perform at least four exceptionally difficult skills in competition, including a triple-double on floor and a double-double dismount on beam. She’s also the most decorated gymnast, male or female, in World Championship history. (Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina holds the Olympic record, with 14 individual medals and 4 team ones; Biles currently has 5.)

(Read Dominique Dawes’ guide to watching gymnastics at the Olympics here .)

Biles’ ongoing efforts to redefine the already gravity-defying sport represent the latest chapter in gymnastics’ 2,000-plus years of history. The sport’s most popular discipline— artistic gymnastics —made its Olympic debut in 1896, at the first modern Games. Today, women artistic gymnasts compete for individual and team all-around titles in four events (vault, uneven bars, beam and floor), while male gymnasts compete in six events (floor, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars and horizontal bar).

From classical civilization to Olga Korbut to Tokyo 2020, here’s what you need to know about gymnastics’ evolution over the past two millennia.

Early history

The sport traces its roots to ancient Greece, where men performed physical exercises in spaces known, fittingly enough, as gymnasiums . The name of the sport itself is derived from the Greek word gymnazein , meaning “to exercise naked.” As alluded to by this definition, most activities, including running, tumbling floor exercises, weight lifting and swimming, were undertaken while unclothed.

The ancient Greeks practiced gymnastics as part of a slate of activities designed to promote physical and mental health. As surgeon and educator David William Cheever wrote for the Atlantic in 1859, “The Athenians wisely held that there could be no health of the mind, unless the body were cared for—and viewed exercise also as a powerful remedial agent in disease.” Different Greek city-states had varying reasons for embracing the sport: In Cheever’s words, the “hardy Spartans, who valued most the qualities of bravery, endurance and self-denial, used the gymnasia only as schools of training for the more sanguinary contests of war.”

Many of the exercises once categorized as gymnastics are now viewed as distinct sports. Some of these events, like boxing, wrestling and racing, appeared in the ancient Olympic Games prior to their discontinuation in 393 C.E.

Following the decline of Greek civilization and the rise of the Romans, gymnastics evolved “ into a more formal sport .” As seen in Sparta, the Romans viewed athletic activity as a means to a martial end. Per Cheever, “The soldier of the early Republic was hence taught gymnastics only as a means of increasing his efficiency.”

Artistic records of athletic feats reminiscent of what’s classified as gymnastics today appear across the ancient world. A famed, 15th-century B.C.E. fresco found at the palace of Knossos in Crete, for instance, depicts three individuals leaping over a charging bull in a manner reminiscent of modern vaulting . In Egypt , an array of hieroglyphics show people performing backbends and similarly acrobatic feats, while in China, Han dynasty engravings feature performers practicing juedixi , a predecessor of gymnastics that incorporated elements of dance, wrestling and tumbling.

Gymnastics fell into relative obscurity after antiquity, with early medieval Europeans shunning extracurricular physical activity in part due to “the strongly ascetic sentiment of early Christianity,” notes Medievalists.net . Financial constraints and shifting cultural tastes also played a role in the sport’s decline, though traveling troupes of thespians, dancers, acrobats and jugglers continued to practice tumbling and gymnastics-adjacent skills throughout the medieval period.

An enlightened national pastime

Modern gymnastics first emerged during the Enlightenment, when Europe experienced “a shift toward [re]emphasizing physical education and mental education,” says Georgia Cervin , a New Zealand­­–based sports scholar and the author of Degrees of Difficulty: How Women's Gymnastics Rose to Prominence and Fell from Grace . Many 19th-century gymnastics regimens had nationalist overtones, with the activity falling under a broader “education program for citizens geared [at] having a population that was both healthy and able to serve the country and the military,” Cervin adds.

The so-called grandfather of gymnastics, German educator Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuth , published the first written guide to the sport in 1793. Titled Gymnastic fuer die Jugend , or Gymnastics for Youth , the text outlined two forms of gymnastics: natural, or utilitarian, and artificial, or nonutilitarian. The former prioritized physical health, while the latter placed a higher value on skills’ aesthetic, much like artistic gymnastics today.

In a revised 1804 edition of Gymnastics for Youth , GutsMuths lauded physical education as a way to “fully develop the aptitude of the physical individual and attain the body’s potential beauty and perfect usefulness.” The educator also alluded to gymnastics’ origins in ancient Greece, adding, “Our gymnastics adheres closely to the culture of the intellect; walks harmoniously hand in hand with it and thereby ideally resembles the pedagogical skills that were practiced by the young men in the Academy of Athens.”

If GutsMuths was the grandfather of gymnastics, then Prussian educator and former soldier Friedrich Ludwig Jahn was undoubtedly its father. Prompted to develop a program of physical education after witnessing his home country’s defeat at the hands of Napoleon, Jahn embraced gymnastics as a means of boosting morale and inspiring patriotism . Jahn viewed fresh-air expeditions, gymnastics and calisthenics as ways of building “national character” and inspiring “ a love for the Fatherland the purity of the Volk ,” or people. His training regimen bordered on militaristic and directly influenced the Hitler Youth movement of the following century.

His first open-air gymnasium, the Turnplatz in Berlin, debuted in 1811, quickly gaining traction among young, middle-class students who responded to his emphasis on “[n]ationalistic pride and national restoration .”

The Turnverein movement sparked by Jahn derived its name from the German words turen (“to practice gymnastics”) and Verein (“club, union”). Adherents known as Turners practiced their skills on apparatuses much like those used today, including the pommel horse, parallel bars, balance beam and horizontal bar.

Turner clubs ’ distinct nationalist bent soon attracted the attention of more conservative forces, who objected to Jahn’s promotion of a Prussia free of French influence. Anti-nationalist sentiment proved so strong that in 1819 , Prussian king Frederick William III actually banned the sport and placed Jahn under house arrest. Turners were only able to practice gymnastics in Prussia again in 1842, when Frederick William IV lifted the ban.

The Sokol —another movement inspired by the Turnverein—took shape in nearby Prague during the early 1860s. (Alternatives to these dominant forms, including a rhythmic-centric movement in Sweden, also cropped up across Europe.) According to Britannica , the Sokol “traditionally emphasized mass calisthenics as a means of promoting communal spirit and physical fitness,” using gymnastics and other exercises to “develop strength, litheness, alertness and courage.” Like the Turnverein, the Sokol movement attracted backlash from those eager to tamp down nationalism: Nazi occupiers banned the gymnastics society during World War II, and though the movement was revived in 1945, the region’s communist leaders banned it once again in 1948.

European immigrants brought gymnastics to the United States in the mid-19th century, establishing offshoots of Turnverein and Sokol clubs in their new country. An American pioneer of the sport was Dudley Allen Sargent , a doctor and educator who taught gymnastics at several U.S. universities between the 1860s and 1910s, in addition to inventing more than 30 different apparatuses for the sport.

Making the Olympics

The Bureau of the European Gymnastics Federation—a predecessor to today’s International Gymnastics Federation (FIG)—was established in 1881 as a global governing body for the sport. Fifteen years later, at the first modern Olympic Games , male gymnasts competed in six individual events (horizontal and parallel bars, pommel horse, rings, rope climbing and vault) and two team ones. Germany dominated the field, claiming five gold medals, three silvers and two bronzes.

Prior to 1928, Olympic gymnastics, like its precursor in ancient Greece, was defined rather broadly. In 1900 , male gymnasts competed in events more closely associated with track and field today, from pole vaulting to long jumping. Standardization of the sport began with the 1928 Games, though specific events, including floor exercise, were only introduced later. (Interestingly, track and field continued to appear at the World Gymnastics Championships until 1954.)

Women gymnasts participated in demonstration exercises at the Olympics as early as 1906, when the Intercalated Games were held, but were barred from actually competing until the 1928 Olympics . (The FIG, for its part, introduced the men’s World Championships in 1903 and the women’s in 1934 .) “No one wanted them to compete, because competition was seen as quite aggressive” and masculine, says Cervin. Jane Rogers , an associate curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH), points out that sports were considered too “strenuous” for women at the time, as men were convinced that their wives’ “reproductive health would just go down the drain if they exercised.”

To allay these (unfounded) concerns, the FIG designed women’s gymnastics “in a way that would showcase femininity” and demonstrate that participating in sports was not just safe for women’s health, but could also be beneficial, says Cervin. “What they’re going to reward [with high scores] align with traditional female values,” she adds: “soft, passive movements” showcasing flexibility, beauty and grace.

A Cold War competition

In the first half of the 20th century, gymnastics proved most popular in continental Europe, where the sport’s modern resurgence had taken place. Though gymnastics experienced a decline in popularity around the mid-1900s, interest soared during the Cold War , when the Olympics emerged as a cultural battleground for nations on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

“The Olympics were seen as a place where the Cold War could be contested,” Cervin explains. “It was a place where, in all sports, the ideologies of communism and capitalism were represented. Winning at a sport was effectively billed as being superior, proving the superiority of that country, from ideology to values.”

Eastern European athletes established their dominance in the discipline by the 1950s, inspiring Western countries like the U.S. to dedicate more resources to their respective gymnastics programs. The United States Gymnastics Federation —now known as U.S.A. Gymnastics —was formed in 1963 as the American sport’s governing body. Cathy Rigby , a gymnast who later found fame playing Peter Pan in an array of theater and film productions, won the U.S.’ first international title at the 1970 World Championships in Yugoslavia, earning a silver medal on the balance beam.

Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut was arguably the sport’s first global superstar. At the 1972 Munich Games , the diminutive 17-year-old “captured the public imagination with her charismatic and daring performances,” per her official Olympics biography . She was the first woman to perform a backward somersault on the beam in an international competition and received the then-unprecedented score of 9.8 out of 10 for successfully executing a backflip on the uneven bars. (The move, known as the Korbut Flip , is now considered so dangerous that Olympic gymnasts are forbidden from even attempting it.)

“It was amazing,” Korbut later recalled . “One day, I was a nobody, and the next day, I was a star.”

Writing for the Guardian in 2012, journalist Paul Doyle noted that “Korbut broke sporting boundaries by doing something considered unfeasible, almost freakish.” He added, “[W]hat intensified her popularity was that, in another sense, she subverted systems by being utterly normal. Her displays of emotion during competition—her girlish smiles after successful performances, her tears of distress after botched ones, and her warm, natural connection with crowds—exploded the myth fostered by Cold War propaganda that Soviets were a callous, mechanical bunch.”

Korbut returned to represent the Soviet Union at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal but was eclipsed by 14-year-old Nadia Comăneci of Romania, who earned the first perfect 10 in gymnastics Olympic history for her flawless uneven bars routine. Only programmed to display three digits, the scoreboard flashed a 1.00 score, momentarily baffling observers.

“I looked around to see what was going on and then I saw the problem or whatever was happening with the scoreboard,” Comăneci said later . “I didn’t understand it but I was like, whatever it is, it’s something wrong so I am just going to concentrate on my next event.”

American ascendancy

Korbut and Comăneci’s much-publicized, televised performances pushed countries with less established gymnastics programs, like China and the U.S., to up the ante. In 1984 , at an Olympics boycotted by the dominant Soviet team, the U.S. men’s team won the country its first gold medal in the all-around; that same year, Mary Lou Retton , a 16-year-old from West Virginia who’d grown up emulating Comăneci, won the individual all-around title, becoming the first U.S. woman to capture an individual medal of any color.

The U.S.’ path to gymnastics ascendancy continued in 1996 , when a group popularly dubbed the Magnificent Seven won the country’s first women’s all-around title. Among the Games’ breakout stars were 18-year-old Keri Strug , who secured the team’s first-place finish by vaulting on an injured ankle , and 19-year-old Dominique Dawes , who became the first African American woman to win an individual Olympic medal in gymnastics.

As Rogers notes, the 1996 Atlanta team was among the first to benefit from Title IX , which upon its enactment in 1972 “really opened up doors” for young female athletes by ensuring they had equal access to public school sports. The U.S. contingent continued to break ground in the new millennium: In 2004, 16-year-old Carly Patterson became the first American woman to win the individual all-around gold medal in a non-boycotted Olympics. In every Summer Olympics since, a U.S. gymnast— Nastia Liukin , Gabby Douglas and Biles in 2008, 2012 and 2016, respectively—has claimed that same top title.

This year, as the world’s gymnasts prepare to take the stage in the long-delayed Tokyo Games , Biles is expected to not only repeat, but build on , the success she found in Rio in 2016.

The future of gymnastics

In recent years, gymnastics has undergone a reckoning, with athletes pushing back against a deeply entrenched culture of abuse . ( Larry Nassar , the former U.S.A. Gymnastics national team doctor who sexually abused hundreds of his young patients, is currently serving a 60-year prison sentence.) The stereotypical view that all gymnasts must be young and petite is being challenged by competitors like 33-year-old Chellsie Memmel and 46-year-old Oksana Chusovitina . And, contrary to the sexist underpinnings of gymnastics’ emphasis on femininity, Biles has clearly established herself as an athlete who prizes strength and sheer power over more passive, soft movements.

Much more work remains to be done, says Cervin, who is a former international gymnast herself. Rather than separating the sport into men’s and women’s events, she suggests allowing individuals to compete on any apparatus they see fit—a move that would make the sport more gender-inclusive, too. Raising the minimum age for Olympic gymnasts from 16 to 18 could also help curb the sport’s normalization of abuse, Cervin argues.

Reflecting on the Olympics more broadly, Rogers emphasizes that the Games are one of the only places where “a woman athlete can really showcase what she can do.” Though women’s sports leagues exist, they receive far less media coverage and investment than men’s.

As for the enduring popularity of gymnastics, and in particular women’s gymnastics, in the U.S., Rogers concludes, “It’s always good when your team, when your country is winning.”

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Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's associate digital editor, history.

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Physical education beyond sportification and biopolitics: an untimely defense of Swedish gymnastics

2011, Sport Education and Society

In this article we try to think in new ways about the educational relevance of physical exercise at school, revisiting a concrete practice that is mostly seen as superseded, namely Swedish gymnastics. A phenomenological analysis of this ‘forgotten’ discipline will show that physical education might be taken in a very literal sense as the exercising of the body properly. Going against the criticism that this kind of gymnastics necessarily implies the subordination of corporeity to biopolitical regimes, we argue (referring to the work of Canetti and Agamben) that this practice might set physical activity free of any meaning whatsoever, and that it therefore might grant an experience of corporeal democracy. We argue furthermore that on this point Swedish gymnastics is opposed to other activities and especially sport, which have become dominant today. We hope that our analysis can stimulate the debate concerning the activities physical education-curricula should comprise.

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Essay on Gymnastics

Students are often asked to write an essay on Gymnastics in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Gymnastics

What is gymnastics.

Gymnastics is a sport that tests balance, strength, flexibility, and control. People who do gymnastics, called gymnasts, perform exercises on different equipment. These include bars, beams, and mats. Gymnastics has been a part of the Olympic Games since 1896.

Types of Gymnastics

There are many types of gymnastics. The most known types are artistic, rhythmic, and trampoline gymnastics. Artistic gymnastics includes exercises on bars, beams, and vaults. Rhythmic gymnastics uses props like ropes and hoops. Trampoline gymnastics is about bouncing high and doing tricks in the air.

Benefits of Gymnastics

Gymnastics is good for the body. It improves strength, flexibility, and balance. It also helps with better body control and coordination. Gymnastics can also build confidence and teach discipline. It is a fun way to stay fit and healthy.

Gymnastics Safety

Safety is very important in gymnastics. Gymnasts should always have a coach or teacher to guide them. They should use safety equipment like mats and padding. It’s also important to warm up before starting and to cool down after.

Famous Gymnasts

There are many famous gymnasts. Simone Biles from the USA and Nadia Comaneci from Romania are two of the best. They have won many medals at the Olympics. They inspire many young people to try gymnastics.

250 Words Essay on Gymnastics

Gymnastics is a sport that tests balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and endurance. The sport, which started in ancient Greece, has grown into a popular activity around the world. In gymnastics, athletes perform exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, power, agility, coordination, grace, balance, and control.

There are many types of gymnastics, but the most common are artistic, rhythmic, and trampoline. Artistic gymnastics is what most people think of when they hear “gymnastics.” It includes events like the balance beam, uneven bars, and floor exercise. Rhythmic gymnastics involves performing with equipment like ropes, hoops, balls, and ribbons. Trampoline gymnastics, as the name suggests, is all about performing flips and tricks on a trampoline.

Training in Gymnastics

Training in gymnastics is very important. It helps gymnasts to build strength, improve flexibility, and learn new skills. Training often includes stretching, strength exercises, and practicing routines. Safety is also very important in gymnastics, so athletes often wear special equipment like mats, grips, and supports.

The Benefits of Gymnastics

Gymnastics has many benefits. It helps to build strength, flexibility, and coordination. It can also improve self-esteem and teach discipline. Plus, it’s a lot of fun! Whether you’re watching or participating, gymnastics is an exciting sport.

In conclusion, gymnastics is a challenging but rewarding sport. It requires strength, flexibility, and discipline. But with training and hard work, anyone can enjoy the many benefits of gymnastics.

500 Words Essay on Gymnastics

Gymnastics is a sport that needs strength, flexibility, balance, and control. This sport started in ancient Greece. It was used for military training. Today, it is a popular sport all over the world.

There are many types of gymnastics. The most popular ones are artistic, rhythmic, trampoline, and acrobatic. In artistic gymnastics, athletes perform on different equipment like bars, beams, and floors. Rhythmic gymnastics is all about grace and beauty. Athletes use props like hoops, balls, ribbons, and ropes. Trampoline gymnastics is about bouncing high in the air. Acrobatic gymnastics is about performing tricks with a partner or a group.

Training for Gymnastics

Gymnastics training is hard. It needs a lot of practice. Gymnasts need to be strong and flexible. They also need to have good balance. Training usually starts at a young age. It involves many hours of practice each week. Gymnasts also need to eat healthy food to keep their bodies strong.

Competitions in Gymnastics

Gymnastics competitions are exciting. Gymnasts perform routines and are judged on their performance. They can earn points for things like difficulty, execution, and creativity. The gymnast with the highest total score wins. There are also team competitions where groups of gymnasts compete together.

Gymnastics is good for the body and the mind. It helps to build strength and flexibility. It also improves balance and coordination. Gymnastics can also boost confidence and teach discipline. It can even help with school work. This is because it teaches focus and concentration.

There are many famous gymnasts. Some of them are Simone Biles, Nadia Comaneci, and Vitaly Scherbo. They have won many medals and set many records. They are role models for young gymnasts all over the world.

Gymnastics is a fun and challenging sport. It can be hard work, but it is also very rewarding. Whether you want to compete or just have fun, gymnastics has something for everyone. So why not give it a try? You might just find that you love it!

And that’s all about gymnastics. It’s a beautiful sport that combines strength, grace, and skill. It’s not just about winning medals, but also about self-improvement and having fun.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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UBC Health Outdoor and Physical Education (HOPE)

Gymnastics reflection.

It is important to create a safe, inclusive and respectful environment in your class. In order to do so, you must be aware of your students capabilities and disabilities. Being a flexible teacher and adapting the environment to your students needs such as, adding extra padding, cones and making boundaries. The teacher must be considerate of time and duration of each activity to make sure the students are engaged throughout. Having set rules and regulation in the class will regulate the students engagement (knowing when to freeze or stop, knowing what is off limits). As a teacher you must be aware of you students abilities and be able to make modifications to the criteria to create a safe, challenging and provide opportunities for success.

When an educator includes large apparatuses within a class, the safety level increases. The educator must implement rules for the use of the apparatus. An educator may be concerned with the supervision around the apparatus, especially if there is many large pieces in use. Make sure to have an adequate amount of mats surrounding the large apparatus to protect students falls.

Educational gymnastics encourages students to think critically and creatively about their body movements. Embracing all variety of basic movement patters and skills will generate an inclusive and creative environment.

Many schools do not have gymnastics equipment however, this should not deter the educator from teaching gymnastics. The educator can focus on body movement and be creative with the equipment which the school has such as, benches, hoola-hoops etc.

One thought on “Gymnastics reflection”

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71 Physical Education Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best physical education topic ideas & essay examples, 🔎 interesting topics to write about physical education, 📑 good research topics about physical education.

• Keeping Physical Education in Schools Apart from participating in the physical education programs, the students need to be taught on the importance of the various exercises so that they inculcate the culture of physical fitness into their life-time fitness programs.
• Physical Education and Its Benefits Schools in particular know the benefits of physical education in a student’s life and should be able to fight for the children’s rights. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• Role of Parents in Physical Education and Sport The involvement of parents in physical education and sports is viewed differently in regard to how it affects the child’s participation in sports even later in life.
• Adaptive Physical Education The value of the brochure developed for the informational purpose is attributed to the need to communicate the importance of APE and point out the value that it could bring to children with special needs.
• Bodies in Physical Education The purpose of this study is to investigate how students view the construction of their bodies in relation to physical education and how students’ meanings of their bodies affect their participation or resistance to physical […]
• Physical Education: Personal Physical Exercise Plan Given the necessity of taking fluids, it is good to identify and avail the same before starting a physical exercise session.
• The Usefulness of Physical Education in Modern Education Varied criticism adds to the debate on the usefulness of PE in modern education and the need to change current approaches. This indicates the need to focus the debate on the meaning of PE to […]
• Health Teaching and Physical Education Lesson Plan Students will be able to dribble a ball with a hand paying attention to such principles as dribbling on the side, waist-high, pushing the ball down, and eyes lookup.
• Physical Education Curriculum Physical education has significantly contributed towards the realization of the school philosophy as it helps in the development of the physical aspects of the students.
• Reducing Physical Education Classes The teaching process has a significant amount of waste regarding the excess number of teachers dedicated to sports training compared to math and technical subjects.
• Physical Education Is an Academic Subject These aspects make physical activity one of the core subjects at school, including for younger students who need a surge of emotions and energy.
• Race and Gender in Physical Education and Sports These factors create the diversity of cultures and nations, and inclusiveness, giving access to the best talents and disclosing the individual’s potential, abilities, and strengths.
• Physical Education: Effect of Phototherapy Therefore, it is evident that the intensity of an exercise directly influences one’s heart rate, breathing rate, skin coloration, sweating, and recovery.
• Effectiveness of Physical Education Provisions in the UK School The vital need for health promotion, especially in terms of secondary education has been highlighted by the science of epidemiology the study of factors that influence the health and illnesses of people.
• British Development of Sport and Physical Education in the Last 25 Years Sport England wishes to increase participation in sports through community sports activities, sporting completions providing and training coaches and officiators, and closely working with the Youth Sport Trust and UK Sports formed in 1996 to […]
• Increase of Physical Education Classes Children are the future of any nation, and their health and well-being are the essential preconditions for the successful development of the United States.
• Physical Educators Attitude to Special Needs Children Sue Combs, together with her colleagues from the University of North Carolina, investigated the attitudes of the physical education teachers towards the inclusion of children with special needs in their lessons.
• The Nature and Values of Physical Education In the past, physical education was considered to consist of only physical and practical activities, however, the recent research has justified that physical education can be included in the curriculum on the basis of scientific […]
• Should Public Schools Be Required to Restore Physical Education Classes to the Curriculum? The occurrence of obesity prevalence in children, in the U S, can be associated with the removal of physical education courses in public school curriculum.
• Physical Education within Elementary Schools One of the benefits of the physical education is the level of physical fitness that it induces to the students. The manner in which these students are introduced to physical education and the way that […]
• Effects of Physical Education on Brain These neurons are usually created in a place called the hippocampus, which happens to be the section of the brain involved in learning and storage of memory.
• Elementary School Curriculum and Physical Education
• Should Physical Education Be a Required Class in College?
• Physical Education Class: The Perfect Place to Be Bullied
• Pros and Cons of Physical Education
• How Physical Education Should Be Taught
• Physical Education for Elementary School Students
• Weight-Related Barriers for Overweight Students in an Elementary Physical Education Classroom
• Physical Education Lesson Plan and Activity Ideas
• Motivation, Discipline, and Academic Performance in Physical Education
• Adaptive Physical Education for Students With Special Needs
• Physical Education Should Not Be Mandated
• How Technology Enhances the Physical Education Curriculum
• Physical Education: Standards, Cooperative Skills, and Learning Theories
• Physical Education’s Contribution to Public Health
• Physical Education Importance for Child Development
• Reasons to Keep Physical Education in the National Curriculum
• Ethical Relativism and Its Impact on Physical Education
• Inclusive School Physical Education and Physical Activity
• History and Benefits of Physical Education: Why I Want to Be a P.E. Teacher
• Physical Education Beyond the Middle School
• The Importance of Physical Education in Childhood Obesity
• Physical Activity Promotion and School Physical Education
• Implementing the TARGET Model in Physical Education: Effects on Perceived Psychobiosocial and Motivational States in Girls
• Teaching the Nuts and Bolts of Physical Education
• Health-Related Intensity Profiles for Physical Education Classes
• Anticipated Benefits From a Basic College Physical Education Activity Course
• Physical Education Should Be Graded on Effort, Not Ability
• Motivation and Intention to Be Physically Active in Physical Education Students
• Personal Development, Health, and Physical Education
• Why Physical Education Should Be Included in the School Curriculum
• Attitude and Teacher’s Qualification as Factors Affecting Students’ Participation in Physical Education Activities
• Burnout in Physical Education Teachers
• What Benefits Physical Activity Has on Academic Performance
• SPARK Physical Education Curriculum Program
• Changing the National Curriculum for Physical Education
• Physical Education: Official School Policy
• How Physical Education Helps to Develop Your Personality
• Early Childhood Development: Physical Education Program Effects
• Fun Physical Education Games for High School Students
• How Extracurricular Sports Should Satisfy State Physical Education Requirements
• One’s Readiness to Self-Development Through Physical Education
• Would More Physical Education Reduce Obesity in the Youths?
• Goal-Directed Physical Education for Learners With Disabilities
• Health and Physical Education: Volleyball
• Managing the Physical Education Classroom
• Strategies to Accommodate Autism Spectrum Disorder Students in General Physical Education
• Physical Education vs. School Sports: What’s the Difference?
• The Impact of School Budgetary Cuts on Physical Education
• Teaching Health and Physical Education in Australian Schools
• Positive Reinforcement Techniques in Physical Education
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Students’ Emotional Experience in Physical Education—A Qualitative Study for New Theoretical Insights

Sascha leisterer.

1 Department of Sport Science, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 10115 Berlin, Germany

Darko Jekauc

2 Department of Sport Science, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany; [email protected]

Physical education (PE) can be the starting point for many students to be physically active throughout their lives. Positive emotional experiences in PE are discussed as beneficial for long-term physical activity, however, triggers of students’ emotions are still unclear. The purpose of this study is to explore, from a student’s perspective, emotions and their triggers, which occur in PE classes. N = 12 students (male: six, female: six, ø-age: 15.6 ± 1.2 years) have been interviewed using a focused semi-structured interview to identify their emotions in PE and to explore the situations in which they occurred. An inductive approach with elements of the Grounded Theory Method was implemented to analyze the data. Students reported a wide range of positive and negative emotions. Furthermore, four crucial triggers were identified: (I) Attractiveness of the task, (II) social belonging, (III) competence and (IV) autonomy. Parallels to existing theories, especially the Self-Determination Theory (SDT), will be discussed. These results can be used to improve teachers’ knowledge about students’ emotions in PE in order to build a basis for lifelong physical activity.

1. Introduction

The International Charter of Physical Education (PE), Physical Activity, and Sport of the UNESCO states the following in article four:

“Physical education…must inspire lifelong participation… Early positive experiences of play, games and physical activities should be prioritized for all so as to lay a foundation of the knowledge, skills, attitudes and motivation necessary for the maintenance of lifelong participation in physical activity and sport” [ 1 ] (pp. 4).

Physical activity provides many physical, psychological, and social benefits for individuals [ 2 ]. Therefore, it is important to create abilities and a fundamental motivation for lifelong participation in physical activities from early years on. To support this development, organized youth sport has been in focus in the last years [ 2 ]. Consequently, in the context of educational programs for children and adolescents, priority is given to positive emotional experiences to foster the development of a lifelong participation in physical activity [ 1 ]. However, PE as a setting of physical activity barely focuses on the opportunity to create a lifelong participation in physical activity, although every child or adolescent participates in PE. The study presented in this article focuses the emotional experiences students have and the triggers of these experiences in secondary PE. It is still unclear if there are unknown aspects of students’ emotional experiences that might provide information about how to create positive emotions in students. Thus, a qualitative approach is used to identify emotional experiences and triggers out of a student’s perspective. As far as the authors know, this study is the first one investigating secondary school students’ experiences in PE by using a qualitative method to focus a student’s inner perspective on PE. Furthermore, this knowledge can help teachers understand students’ emotional experiences and enable every student to have positive emotions in PE.

The difficulty for teachers is to address students’ emotional experiences properly as emotional perceptions change in the course of a student’s school career depending on the development from childhood to adolescence. Consequently, this development influences sporting commitment and related positive experiences of adolescents [ 3 ]. Every student gains experiences in PE that can be both positive and negative, for example related directly to situations of winning or losing [ 4 ]. However, it is important to build a basis of positive experiences in PE to support students with their sport commitment, although the mechanisms of this affective domain are still unclear. Thus, it is hard for teachers to take students’ emotions into account [ 4 ]. The purpose of this study was to investigate students’ emotional experiences in PE. Therefore, this paper reports a qualitative interview study, focusing students’ emotions in PE as a starting point.

Emotion is an important aspect of motivation, behavior, and commitment in PE [ 3 ], which helps to foster a lifelong participation in physical activity. Pleasant feelings concerning a specific task makes it worthwhile to turn one’s attention to it, to engage oneself in this task, and to want to do it again. Unpleasant feelings towards a task, however, encourage oneself to avoid the task. Playing basketball in PE is a moment of enjoyment for those students who obviously like playing games, whereas the other students, who do not like playing games at all, try to find a reason for not playing basketball. The last mentioned group shows behavior like asking the teacher for an alternative exercise, or they suddenly feel sick. Unfortunately, these affective aspects are mainly ignored to understand students’ behavior in PE classes throughout adolescence. Additionally, it is important to take into account that emotional experiences change and develop throughout adolescence [ 3 ]. To understand the construction of emotions, the structure of emotions can be explained in the circumplex model of affect as dimensional constructions of pleasant or unpleasant feelings with an activating or deactivating arousal [ 5 ]. This knowledge about emotions can help to identify students’ emotional perceptions. It is important to help adolescent students develop their emotional intelligence during high school [ 6 ]. This means to learn how to release, control, and regulate their emotions, thanks to the development of integrating cognitive functions and emotional perceptions [ 7 ].

From a theoretical perspective, there are three main assumptions that were related to affective outcomes: Students’ attitudes towards PE [ 8 ], the basic need theory [ 9 ], and the motivational climate [ 10 ]. Firstly, students’ attitudes are concepts of a cognitive and an affective component of opinions toward a specific content [ 8 ], for example, a specific activity in PE like soccer. The investigation of attitudes towards PE shows that students who find a personal relevance in PE have positive affective outcomes, for example, enjoyment in soccer [ 11 , 12 ]. It seems as if students who participate in sports during their leisure time perceive more positive emotions in secondary school PE due to their positive attitudes toward sports in leisure time [ 12 ]. The emphasis on competitive sports in secondary school PE seems to affect students’ emotions in PE positively, when they do sports in their free-time, or negative, when they are more inactive [ 13 ]. Secondly, the basic need theory [ 9 ] describes that fulfilling the needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence supports a self-determined motivation that is in association with positive emotions [ 14 ]. Fulfilling basic needs in a PE situation where students experience positive emotions helps to motivate students intrinsically [ 14 , 15 ]. The investigation of social relatedness shows that social interaction in secondary school PE is associated with positive affective outcomes [ 16 ]. Autonomy-supportive teaching styles provide the possibility to fulfill the basic need of autonomy and is thought to be related directly to positive emotions [ 17 ]. Competence seems to be positive related to need satisfaction and thereby positive affective outcomes too [ 18 ]. Thirdly, motivational climates create learning atmospheres. An ego-oriented motivational climate in PE results in a competitive environment, whereas a task-oriented motivational climate creates a learning atmosphere focusing on the process of learning [ 10 ]. Motivational climates have been investigated in relation to students’ emotions in PE [ 19 , 20 , 21 ]. A task-oriented climate in class supports positive affective outcomes for students in PE [ 19 , 21 ]. While investigations of different motivational climates as task versus ego-orientation provides information about affective outcomes in PE, it still remains unclear if there are any other possibilities to create a fun-related learning atmosphere in class [ 22 ]. Finally, applying theories, like students’ attitudes, the basic need theory or the assumption of motivational climates leads to affective outcomes in secondary school PE. However, an evidence-based description of distinct emotions and their specific triggers in secondary school PE is still missing.

This theoretical perspective on emotional outcomes represents a specific view on which theories are related to emotional outcomes in PE, but does not identify distinct emotional experiences of students. Current literature focused more on affective outcomes mainly categorized as positive or negative. The question remains, whether or not research misses the investigation students’ distinct emotions and their specific triggers in secondary school PE. In fact, there is no research that focuses a student’s perspective to prove, if there are unrevealed aspects of emotional experiences in secondary school PE. In contrast to a hypothesis testing [ 23 ], a qualitative methodology can explore a student’s perspective to derive new theoretical assumptions [ 24 ]. As shown in an investigation of primary school students [ 25 ], it is possible to investigate emotional experiences and its triggers in primary school PE by interviewing students. A first exploration of emotional experiences is presented in a qualitative interview study [ 25 ] that analyzed students’ emotions in primary school. The results of this study show that younger students have broad emotional experiences that are mostly related to basic pleasant or unpleasant feelings to motor tasks, for example, fun in trying risky tasks or anger if they do not succeed [ 25 ]. However, the question what changes in the emotional experiences can be detected when the students get older and visit secondary school arises. Thus, it is important to gain insight into students’ emotional experiences at secondary schools. A similar study in secondary school PE, which focuses on what emotionally changes during the transition from childhood to adulthood, is still missing, in contrast to primary school students where there have been studies in the past. If we gain a more distinct insight in what adolescent students experience in PE and how these experiences are triggered, we would be able to focus on how to support students in regulating their emotions.

Thus, it is necessary to explore the emotional experiences out of a student’s perspective. An explorative interview study could provide information about unrevealed aspects of student’s emotions in PE. In sum, it remains unclear what exactly students experience emotionally in secondary school PE and how these experiences are connected to individual and environmental triggers. In order to fill this research gap, we ask the two explorative research questions: (1) Which emotions do students experience in PE, and (2) what triggers students’ emotional experience in secondary school PE?

2. Materials and Methods

To answer the research questions, a qualitative focused semi-structured interview study with an inductive strategy was conducted in order to explore the field of emotional experiences in PE classes from a student’s perspective. Students who participated in German secondary school PE classes were interviewed. The Public Administration for Education, Youth, and Science in the urban region where the study conducted was approved the ethical reasonableness of the entire study for the students. The study adhered to the data policy valid at the time when the study was conducted. Collecting the students’ names or any other pseudonyms to identify the participants were restricted by the Public Administration for Education, Youth, and Science.

2.1. Study Design

Twelve ninth and tenth graders participated, six boys and six girls, aged 14 to 18. The average age was 15.6 years. Half of the participants were physically active outside of school. The other half only took part in the PE classes provided by their schools. The teachers confirmed that the same pedagogical framework was used for all the participants’ PE classes. All students were chosen randomly and participated voluntarily. No compensation was given for participating in this study.

As a first step to creating the interview structure, questions relevant to the topic were brainstormed, discussed, and selected with and by peer researchers. To avoid overlaying experiences of the interviewer, questions focused on remembering and visualizing real experiences of and by the interviewee. In a second step, questions were put into an order that enabled fluent communication. Subsequently, the interview structure was tested on two students (both female, age: 14) who participated voluntarily. Due to the results of this pilot study, the participants were briefed and it was pointed out that there were no wrong answers. According to our pilot interview partners, this statement relaxed the atmosphere. In order to support the participants in describing their emotions, the interviewer explained before the interview that it might be difficult to name emotions. However, every paraphrased explanation would be as good as a single word for one emotion. This reduced the participants’ struggle trying to find the ‘right words’; they were able to proceed with their individual narrative strategy. Their answers were never overlaid by the questions of the interviewer. All adjustments were made before using the interview structure in the study.

The interview procedure was standardized in accordance with interlocutors, sequences of the communication and the interview structure. Interviews were carried out on a one (interviewee) to one (interviewer) basis with an average duration of 20 min. The interviewer remained the same. Interviews were carried out in a separate room in schools during regular classes. Students were picked randomly from the on-going PE class. Firstly, a short introduction was given introducing the interviewer and his assistant, informing the participant of the aims and the procedure of the study, as well as their rights as voluntary participants. Secondly, the interviewee was asked introductory questions (e.g., age, favorite subject or free time activities) to start the conversation. Then the interviewee was asked about his or her general attitude towards PE in school. This beginning of the interview was chosen as attitudes are related to emotional experiences. Thus, if the answer to this first question was positive, questions about positive emotional experiences were asked directly afterwards. This would be followed by questions about negative emotional experience. If the answer was negative, questions were asked the other way around. Interview questions were for example, “Please describe a positively/negatively experienced situation during a PE class in which you participated”, “What did you feel in this situation?”, or “What exactly made this situation more or less intense?”. The entire interview guideline is attached in Appendix A , Figure A1 . Further ad-hoc questions were asked to clarify the emotional experience and to get more details. To obtain further information and to conduct member checks during the interviews, the interviewer used interrogation techniques of paraphrasing and repeating the interviewees’ answers followed by a question (e.g., “Can you elaborate this please?”).

2.2. Data Analysis

For the analysis, the interviews were audio-transcribed using the transcription software F5 [ 26 ]. Following the hermeneutical idea of coding, comparing and contrasting in several repetitions with MaxQDA [ 27 ], a theory of emotional experience in PE was derived [ 24 ]. To establish this theory, the transcribed interviews were first coded openly to identify elements that answered the research question [ 24 ]. Secondly, axial coding made it possible to integrate similar codes into dimensional categories of trigger mechanisms as well as influential categories [ 24 ]. Inductive and deductive approaches to analyze data were applied [ 24 ]. The inductive analysis identified influencing aspects and triggers of emotions in PE situations described in the interviews. During the deductive analysis the circumplex structure of emotion by Russell and Feldman Barrett [ 5 ] clustered the emotions named in the interviews. Third and lastly, selective coding evaluated trigger mechanisms and influencing categories concerning the explicit emotions named by the participants. Every step was accompanied by a peer discussion to establish a convincing step-by-step analysis of the data.

We derived the model presented in Figure 1 from interviews with students. Four main categories of emotional triggers were identified: (I) Attractiveness of the task, (II) social belonging, (III) perceived competence, and (IV) autonomy. The following section explains every context of a trigger. For each of the four triggers, we will first give a description of the trigger. In the second part, we will explain the influencing factors of the trigger. Finally, we will summarize the emotions identified and triggered by these factors. Students’ names are pseudonyms.

This is the model of a student’s emotional perception in physical education (PE). The emotional perception can be triggered by the attractiveness of the task, social belonging, perceived competence, or autonomy.

3.1. Students’ Emotional Experiences

In conclusion, a wide range of different emotions both on the positive and negative spectrum of students’ emotional experiences in secondary PE can be identified in the interviews. An overview of all identified emotions, categorized into positive and negative emotions, is given here. In the following sections, the emotional experiences are categorized additionally in activating and deactivating according to the circumplex model of affect [ 28 ].

On the one hand, there are positive emotions and related states, such as happiness, joy, fun, rush of adrenaline, passion, contentedness, freedom, balance, compensation, relief, relaxation, pride, confidence, skilfulness, grandeur, power, superiority, enjoyment, sense of aesthetics, and tension.

On the other hand, there are negative emotions and related states, such as depression, grief, weakness, helplessness, feeling cheated, fear, disappointment, discontentment, (negative) astonishment, embarrassment, humiliation, rage, aggression, anger, animosity, and boredom.

3.2. Attractiveness of the Task

Interviews show that attractiveness of the task describes a student’s interest in a specific motor task. It is an internal task-specific trigger that can be learned. This means, the attractiveness of the task depends on motor experiences formed during previous physical activities. These experiences are internal representations of motor tasks that the students had to perform in the past. Hanna, for example, likes to practice on a beam. She says: “…if you make it—it is simply this…small rush of adrenaline” (Interview-3). Former experiences influence the attractiveness of the task as an emotional trigger. Only if students remember previous positive individual experiences connected to the specific task or see similarities in this task with a known and liked task, then this is a positive trigger. Linda’s experiences as a cheerleader enable her to include motor experiences that she enjoys in this specific PE-task. This, too, helps to foster her commitment to PE because she can incorporate what she likes from cheerleading into gymnastics. Finally, she concludes that she enjoys investing her time and skills into the task. When we asked Linda to describe this joyful experience, she explains:

“I like special tasks. In winter, we did gymnastics and fitness. This was very fun, and when we started, … I thought: “Finally, we can do it again!” It’s been a year since we last practiced it. We do it every year, and I can hardly wait for gymnastics. When we start again, I am so excited… It is always so much fun because we can perform a lot. Since I have been a cheerleader for five years, I can show a lot more than expected, things we learned in cheerleading like lifts and entertainment…” (Interview-7).

Compared to Linda, Anna shows that individual experiences—“this is not my sport”, as she says (Interview-10)—influence the attractiveness of the task (Anna does not like games in PE) in a way that finally triggers negative emotions such as a lack of interest or boredom. Anna, 15 years old, makes clear that she is absolutely not interested in games: “… In general I am not that kind of girl who likes games, this is not my kind of sport…” (Interview-10). Whenever she has to play in PE, she feels uncomfortable and dislikes this specific PE lesson.

From the data, we summarize that on the one hand the attractiveness of the task triggers positive emotions that are pleasant and highly activating, for example, excitement or joy, and on the other hand, negative emotions that are unpleasant and barely activating, for example, boredom. We can conclude that the attractiveness of the task is, as in Linda’s example, an important predictor of positive emotions in PE, like feeling “joyful”, “happy”, and “excited”. Anna’s example shows the opposite reaction to the teacher’s announcement of playing in the following PE lesson.

These stories are good examples for the relationship between attractiveness of a specific task and the perception of positive and negative emotions. Past motor experiences play a crucial role and are an influencing aspect in perceiving a task as attractive.

3.3. Social Belonging

The perception of social belonging is represented in the interviews by a perception of interaction among peers. Selma, 15 years old, is not very interested in participating in sports but whenever the entire class is involved she has “fun” during the PE classes:

“Our fun lessons are the game lessons when we play together… And we are not so ambitious to win; we just want to have a good time together. We are all friends, and we know each other pretty well. That is how I see it… if I had to name it in one word, it is about belonging. Everyone is part of it, and everyone is accepted. And this makes you feel happy, it is fun, and you do not play against the others, you play with them” (Interview-2).

In contrast to this, Peter, 14 years old, shares an intensely negative experience with us when he remembers a group exercise with low cooperation and social commitment. Peter’s words show that he had expected collaboration during this group exercise. When he describes that quitting the group would have made his experience worse, we can interpret this as downgrading the feeling of belongingness: Losing the group means losing the sense of belonging:

“… we had to perform a gymnastic routine in a group building human pyramids; I am normally the guy at the base. The others, though, did not want to climb up. They just said: “Nah, this is not what I fancy doing!” And our teacher had already said that this is not okay. Then, I felt betrayed! They just gave up in the last rehearsal. I just did not understand how this cooperation and team spirit could not exist anymore. That I just could not rely on the others, it was the uncertainty, this feeling of “why are they doing this?” I really did not understand why they gave up. And this was a mixture of sadness and anger, and I was in total rage because of them. And I felt down and depressed” (Interview-1).

External factors like friendships between classmates or a good social atmosphere in class influences the perception of social belonging. Social belonging is characterized by a degree of social cohesion and engagement, motivation, inclusion or exclusion, and admiration or rejection. Whereas social cohesion and engagement is the perception and concrete action of interpersonal dependence, as Leonard describes: “I devoted myself to the other guy, because I realized that he was active on my behalf, he would even make a sacrifice for me in the match by falling out of the match” (Interview-4); motivation means to push on with the support from another peer group member, like in Jack’s experience: “…the others [students] who have already finished the exercise but still run with me to motivate me, they really go along with me I improve my results and feel really good” (Interview-8). Inclusion or exclusion defines interpersonal behavior above average or the general perception of being part of a certain community like being with friends as Peter puts it: “Well these are the people I trust most, and otherwise it would not be as much fun, my friends do have to be there” (Interview-1) or like watching other students that distance themselves from the others as Marie says: “I do not like the guys …who are sitting on the bench, who are doing nothing but talking, who do not help. I think this is impolite” (Interview-9).

Data shows that social belonging mainly triggers positive emotions with pleasant and slightly activating characteristics like fun or happiness. However, a lack of social belonging seems to lead to negative emotional experiences of unpleasant and slightly deactivating (for example sadness) or slightly activating characteristics (for example anger). Selma describes her feelings as positive when playing together. Peter’s story shows that a reduction, loss or lack of social belongingness triggers negative emotions in PE and that this atmosphere influences the type of negative emotions.

The interview examples show that social inclusion triggers the emotional perception. However, it is also obvious that social belonging does not exist on its own. This feeling of being “part of it” depends on the atmosphere and friendly relationships in class.

3.4. Perceived Competence

Interviewees described competence as perceived success in motor tasks, like learning or improving in an exercise or achieving personal goals (e.g., success by overcoming fear) or competitive goals (e.g., achievement in comparison with others) in sports. Perceived competence becomes evident in the interviews of Jack, Marie, and Selma. Soccer player Jack, 15 years old, describes success in a soccer game, and Marie, 16 years old, explains how she succeeded on the horizontal bar. Both Jack and Marie describe situations in which they succeeded. Jack succeeded in scoring a goal, whereas Marie learnt a specific move in gymnastics. Jack says:

“… I kicked the ball and directly scored a goal… It was a positive feeling that I had made it. And the others sometimes tell me: “What you did was really cool.” This positive feedback is a good thing for me. I feel better in soccer when I know that I did it right. And it is fun; playing a game you are good at. … I feel certain when I know that I can succeed in my performance” (Interview-8).

Additionally, Marie explains:

“Recently, we practiced at the horizontal bar. I did not make it. But my teacher helped me, explained and showed me how to do it. And then I learned it and finally succeeded. And this success felt good. … and my teacher told me that it was very good… Finally, I was really happy and relieved!” (Interview-9).

Perceived competence depends on external or internal factors. External factors are environmental aspects that influence the perception of competence due to feedback, evaluation, help, or support by others: “It was good to know that my teacher trusted me, and that she knew I could succeed. This boosted my will to succeed. I wanted to make it. My teacher supported me, and this was my motivation”, says Marie (Interview-9). In contrast, internal factors are students’ inner principles that affect their expectations and perceptions of being competent, like individual values, ambitions, or the will to succeed. Harry explains these inner principles referring to his ambitions: “Actually, I have my goal in mind… to be faster [when running] than before. This only works out when I am very, very motivated, when I do not give up, and when I am very ambitious” (Interview-6). There are internal influential aspects, as well. Jack is a good soccer player in his free time, so he seems to be fit, and his motor skills for the match are well developed which makes him feel certain (“I feel certain when I know that I can succeed in my performance”). Marie mentions her “will to succeed”, so she refers to a mental skill that helped her in gymnastics. Thus, we suggest that individual skills are either physically or mentally important influential factors on being able to perceive competence as a trigger of positive emotions. Jack would not have been as successful as a soccer player without his skills and experiences, and Marie would have stopped trying to learn this specific move in gymnastics if it had not been for her strong will. Even bad motor experiences in the past can influence the perception of competence, but the emotional perception however is negative. Selma, for example, is not very interested in sports. When we asked her what she does not like in PE, she answered rapidly: “Cross country running, I am so bad at cross country running”. Every time she has to run, she feels incompetent. Here is her story:

“… I feel really uncomfortable when I run two laps in eighteen minutes, and even though I feel I was really fast, my teacher tells me that I will still get the worst grade because I was too slow. It was so exhausting. I did my best, but I still got the worst grade. No reward! This is so humiliating; I do not want to carry on because I think that I will never change. It makes me feel disappointed, angry and sad at the same time. And I feel bad because I could not do any better…” (Interview-2).

Positive emotions in this context seem to be very pleasant but barely activating (for example enjoyment or relief), whereas negative emotions seem to be very unpleasant and slightly activating (for example anger) or deactivating (for example disappointment). For Marie and Jack, the final motor success triggered positive emotions such as “happiness”, “joy”, “certainty” (Jack: “You know, you did it right”), and “relief” (Marie: “finally succeeded”). Selma’s description contrasts that of Jack and Marie. Feeling incompetent at cross country running makes Selma feel “uncomfortable”, “humiliated”, “angry”, “disappointed” and “sad”.

The stories of Jack, Marie, and Selma show that perceived competence is a trigger of emotions in PE, but this trigger is strongly related to the support from their peers and teachers, the evaluation by others, and their individual skills.

3.5. Autonomy

Data has shown that autonomy can be defined as students’ freedom of choice concerning activity or their own behavior. The satisfaction of autonomy can trigger emotions simply by having the right to choose: “…that you choose something [a task] you are good at…” (Interview-2). Additionally, it can influence competence when the student can make his or her own decisions about a task, as Selma explains: “… for example those who are good at soccer, can play soccer, if they want to” (Interview-2). Students can then choose to be active in whatever activity they are good at.

Interviewees explained two distinct external influential aspects of autonomy: variations and new tasks. Variations are, for example, individual changes to a task that students can choose from or alternatives to specific tasks. New tasks are a novelty in relation to the regular curriculum in PE. Yet, they have to be discussed and chosen by the students to support autonomy. Anna gives a clear example of novelty when she explains that she appreciates her teacher being more flexible with the curriculum to make a step towards the class’s interest “… then she [the teacher] makes the most of it. For example, we recently danced which was different from what we normally do” (Interview-10). Both variation and novelty are conditions for supporting autonomy in PE.

The results show positive emotional experiences that are triggered by the satisfaction of autonomy, pleasant, and more activating (for example, excitement when looking forward to the task) than the emotions triggered by the satisfaction of competence. According to Marie, her teacher asks the students to express their wishes and ideas for the PE classes. With this democratic approach, novelty leads to perceived autonomy. Autonomy triggers positive experiences and as Marie states: “this is a great thing to happen in every PE lesson. I am always looking forward to our PE classes” (Interview-9). With our data, we cannot contrast autonomy as a trigger of positive emotions with a negative experience. No interviewee reported negative effects concerning autonomy. Autonomy supportive situations in PE attract students to a specific task. Mainly, variety and novelty influence these situations positively.

4. Discussion

The purpose of the present study was to explore from a student’s perspective the emotions of adolescent students in PE at secondary schools, and how they are triggered. The following section, in turn, presents the key findings concerning students’ emotions and integrates the findings of students’ perspectives into a theoretical perspective. Thanks to the interview design, we could determine distinct emotions out of a student’s perspective, in contrast to former research findings that focused more on positive or negative affective outcomes. Secondly, the derived model and its close relation to self-determination theory (SDT) is discussed. In this section, we will emphasize our findings on the attractiveness of the task that can be compared to students’ attitudes and personal relevancies towards PE. Equally we focus on the parallels between our findings and the basic need theory and its relation to positive affective outcomes. Finally, this model’s implications are explained, and the methodology of the study is discussed.

4.1. Which Emotions Do Students Experience in PE?

To explore the field of emotions in PE in young people, our first research question was: Which emotions do students experience in PE? The interviews revealed a variety of individual insights into emotional experiences. The identification of a broad range of both positive (happiness, relief, and others) and negative (anger, sadness, and others) emotions assists in the understanding of PE from a student’s perspective. The results show that students experience a broad range of activating emotions in PE, be it pleasant (for example fun, joy, or excitement) or unpleasant (for example anger). Yet, it is also possible that students experience deactivating emotions, which seem to be limited to unpleasant feelings, like sadness or disappointment. Regarding positive emotions and related states, primary school students mentioned being cheerful, happy, contented, joyful, relaxed, and passionate in PE as well as feeling fit, free, and relieved [ 25 ]. In comparison, the present study confirms these emotions with secondary school students. This confirmation had been anticipated due to previous studies that describe positive emotional experiences in sports as remaining stable in the transition from childhood to adulthood [ 3 ]. Additionally, pride as a self-conscious emotion [ 29 ] appears in the presented study’s results. This might be related to a broader sense of self-concept of adolescents in comparison to that experienced by children; adolescents start to be aware of their own actions and how these are seen by others [ 29 ]. Thus, pride is an emotion that results from comparing one’s own appraisal of performance to that of others. The present results show that the opinions of peers become more important for emotional experiences in secondary school PE than in primary school PE.

When contrasting the negative emotions and related states identified in this study with previous research, some differences can be seen. Fear, boredom, weakness, grief, depression, rage, and anger have also been identified in the experiences of primary school students [ 25 ]. Other negative emotions, identified by our study, such as embarrassment, humiliation, and the feeling of being cheated on, are emotions that develop within the social context of PE over time, since to young people, acceptance by peers is more relevant [ 3 ]. In accordance with Harter’s theory about the development of one’s self [ 29 ], we can again confirm that the social context in secondary school PE classes plays an important role. For example, in PE there is both a broader range of negative emotions, due to social interaction, and of self-conscious emotions.

4.2. What Triggers Students’ Emotions in Secondary School PE?

Our second research question in exploring the emotions of young people in PE was: What triggers students’ emotions in secondary school PE? We identified four triggers of emotional experience: (I) Attractiveness of the task, (II) social belonging, (III) perceived competence, and (IV) autonomy. These triggers are similar to recent findings on how to support adolescent students in finding a meaning in PE through personal relevance [ 11 ] or satisfying basic needs [ 12 , 13 , 30 , 31 ]. We will discuss these triggers in the following section and will contrast our findings with theories that may provide further knowledge of students’ emotions in PE in order to support students with the development of a lifelong motivation to be physically active.

(I) The attractiveness of the task is a trigger of positive or negative emotions. The present findings show that attractiveness is related to interest or personal relevance [ 8 , 11 ]. According to previous research [ 11 , 12 ], the student perceives positive emotions, like joy, if he or she evaluates the task as attractive. This supports our results. In contrast, low attractiveness results in a lack of interest or boredom during the task. The mechanisms that were identified influences the development of students’ interest and their positive feelings [ 11 , 32 ]. Consequently, this interest leads to commitment to sports [ 33 , 34 ]. Our exploration shows that experiences are an important factor in making a task attractive. The interview partners of our study, for example, remember previous experiences they made in PE or in extracurricular physical activities. According to Weiner [ 35 ], expectations are an important aspect of emotional attribution and a predictor of enjoyment [ 36 ]. In terms of PCK, it is for teachers to consider that students need to collect different experiences in order to be able to learn what makes a task attractive. Finally, teachers could also consider alternative tasks, which could potentially be more attractive.

(II) Social belonging amongst peers plays a crucial part in PE. To experience positive and negative emotions, the degree of how strongly one feels part of a social group is very important. The word “belonging” even appeared in the interview. These social bonds create emotional bonds that also foster intrinsically motivated behavior [ 9 ]. Thus, social bonds are beneficial to PE classes in secondary school. In contrast to the more self-perceptive experiences of primary school students [ 25 ], the present findings support the assumption that adolescents are more sensitive to their peers and friends as well as to the atmosphere in class. In accordance with former assumptions [ 3 ], our results show that being accepted and involved, mainly by peers, is, for secondary school students, important for triggering emotions in PE. In regression analyses [ 37 ], positive social relations in PE are important for positive emotional outcomes. Especially if the relationship between the teacher and the students is not positive, the relationships between peers are discussed as very important to enhance positive affective states in PE [ 37 ]. Present findings of a qualitative study highlight peer relations as one important aspect for positive emotional experiences in PE [ 38 ]. Thus, we can add our results to this recent discussion. For students, social interaction is an important aspect to perceiving PE as meaningful, which is related to positive emotional experiences too [ 11 , 16 ]. Thus, concerning teachers’ pedagogical work, investing in a good and cooperative social environment in secondary school PE has multiple benefits for students’ emotional experiences and the related aspects of their self-development.

(III) Perceived competence is a strong trigger for emotional experience. The feeling of competence/incompetence in a motor task leads to either positive or negative emotions and depends on one’s skills, either physically or mentally. We assume that perceived competence is strongly related to success when performing tasks in PE. The present results show that internal factors influence the perception of competence, as seen in determination, because one has either met expectations or has the ambition to utilize one’s skills. In this context, the results of this study support the assumptions of the attribution theory [ 35 ], which states that knowing one’s own skills from former experiences enhances controllability, which in turn triggers emotions. However, it is not only controllability as an internal factor but also external factors such as social support or evaluation from others that influence the perception of competence. Social support or evaluation by others is what we call an external factor. According to former research findings [ 33 , 39 ], support from either fellow peers or from the teacher, influences young peoples’ perceptions of success in the context of sports. This is similar to what we have seen in the interviews. Finally, evaluation is an important element for feeling competent [ 35 , 36 ], as described in excerpts of the interviews. In turn, evaluation is an important aspect for young students to feel competent and therefore to experience positive emotions. This finding is quite similar to the explanation of positive emotions in the context of SDT [ 40 ]. Perceived competence, in terms of physical self-concept, is a significant predictor of future physical activity, which moderates the relationship between motor abilities and physical activity in adolescents and young adults [ 41 ]. Furthermore, perceived competence in PE is related to creating meaningful PE classes that are connected with positive emotions [ 11 ]. Concerning teachers’ PCK, it is important to acknowledge that supporting students to set and achieve their goals, as well as evaluate their performances comprehensibly is vital in the context of perceived competence as a trigger of emotions.

(IV) Autonomy is a trigger of positive emotions since it relates to students’ freedom of choice and wishes. Students appreciate being able to decide for themselves what they want to do in PE, or decide that they like to try new things, in accordance to their wishes. In a similar qualitative study [ 38 ], autonomy is defined in the same way as we derived from our data. In unison with this definition [ 38 ], we see autonomy in PE as a construct of free choices, variety, and novelty that is closely related to positive emotional outcomes. This description of autonomy corresponds with the term, “autonomy supportive teaching style”, which is widely used in literature [ 17 , 42 , 43 ]. This didactical approach supports students’ enjoyment and interests in PE tasks [ 17 , 44 ], and we can see the positive effects in our results. In the context of PCK, teachers should choose a way of teaching supporting autonomy to trigger positive emotions. The results of our study do not support the idea that the lack of autonomy is a trigger for negative emotions. Students may not be aware of a lack of autonomy. Therefore, a lack of autonomy does not necessarily trigger negative emotions. Another explanation might be that students are used in an authoritarian way of teaching and do not expect autonomy.

Triggering students’ emotions by creating an attractive, interactive, competence-oriented, and autonomy-supportive PE can help teachers train the students’ emotional intelligence. Thus, teachers can create situations with knowledge of triggering emotions to provide emotional intelligence training within PE. This work on emotional intelligence contributes to a secondary school PE that is sensitive to the emotional development throughout adolescence [ 6 ].

The present findings create a basis to support students by motivating them to be physically active in the long term. In addition to recent research findings on triggers of adults’ emotional perceptions during recreational physical activities [ 41 ], the present findings support perceived competence and social belonging as important emotional triggers in physical activities. However, it seems as though autonomy does not play a crucial role in physical activities for adults. However, it is a novelty that triggers these emotions. In contradiction to our findings where novelty is a condition of autonomy, Wienke and Jekauc [ 41 ] shows that, for adults, novelty itself is a trigger for physical activity. Here, we probably see a development of a trigger due to the setting. In PE, students depend on a teacher’s planned lesson and his or her way of teaching supporting autonomy, whereas adults may freely choose their physical exercise. Going from PE to adult physical activity, novelty itself becomes the trigger. To support this development, teachers may ask for their students’ opinions so they can integrate new tasks into the lessons. If students learn to choose new tasks they are interested in doing in PE, we suggest that novelty will become an even stronger trigger of positive emotions in physical activities later on. Finally, teaching supporting autonomy in PE seems to be an important element for positive emotional experiences for physical activity in the future.

4.3. Present Results in the Context of SDT

The findings of the present study are closely related to SDT, particularly with the three basic needs as emotional triggers: Social belonging, perceived competence, and autonomy [ 9 ]. We derived these results from our data, although we did not use the approach of SDT to analyze the interviews. This is in accordance with a recent study [ 38 ] that also found close relations between the basic needs and emotional experiences, especially in the context of autonomy and social belonging. According to the literature [ 9 ], intrinsic motivation requires the fulfillment of these three needs. Surprisingly, we identified social belonging, perceived competence, and autonomy not as basic needs but as triggers for emotional experiences in PE.

The role of emotions in SDT has already been discussed. Different types of motivation depend on different emotional regulation strategies [ 9 ]. Other studies [ 45 , 46 ] add to the discussion that positive affects, which are the prerequisites for positive emotions, are signals for intrinsic motivation according to the SDT. It is supposed that students perceive more positive emotions when they are motivated intrinsically and that there is a reciprocal relationship [ 40 ]. Despite this, though, emotions have not yet been integrated into the SDT [ 45 , 46 ].

Regarding the interaction of former experiences and the attractiveness of the task as an emotional trigger, this can confirm the reciprocal relation between intrinsic motivation and emotion. As we did not focus on emotional regulation strategies in this exploration, we cannot compare our findings with the suggestion that these regulation strategies are important [ 9 ]. However, we do see parallels to the idea that positive emotions enhance intrinsic motivation. That is why emotions have to be included into the SDT as an influential factor of intrinsic motivation [ 45 ]. It is possible that positive emotions are the mediator between basic needs and intrinsic motivation. Humans are motivated to experience positive emotions. This might be because of the link to intrinsic motivation. Since we asked our interviewees for their emotions and they recalled the basic needs of the SDT, it seems likely that emotions had been felt prior to experiencing intrinsic motivation. Emotions are probably not only an aspect influencing intrinsic motivation, but also an outcome of satisfying basic needs, and probably occur before intrinsic motivation.

4.4. Open Questions

The strengths of this study are the systematic analysis and the heterogeneous choice of the sampling concerning sex, school levels, and extracurricular sport activities. The sample was equitable in regards to sex and school levels as well as the number of hours spent on participating in extra-curricular sport activities per week. The interviews have been highly standardized in terms of setting, interviewer, and interview structure. While the sample size ( n = 12) seems small, there were enough participants to be able to achieve successful saturation and a deep exploration of the data, which might provide a framework for future qualitative approaches to this topic. In the present study, it is a limitation that the interview questions were not derived from current literature. Future research might use current literature to create the interview guideline and its questions to focus on the research gap. Another open question is—due to the restriction of collecting students’ names—which we are not able to prove the semantic meaning of words used by the interviewees.

4.5. Implications

This study sets implications for both future research and practical work for teachers in PE. Future research is supposed to add observational data to analyze behavioral effects of emotions in contrast to the individual representation of emotional experiences, as identified in this study. Additionally, quantitative studies should be carried out to test the established model of emotions in PE. This will help to focus more closely on the role of emotions, for example in motivational theories, and to be able to better explain the affective part of motivation. Further research on the mechanisms of basic needs and emotions are required in order to answer the question of which role do emotions play in the context of SDT in PE. This helps to better locate emotions in SDT and to better explain self-determined behavior in the context of secondary school PE.

For teachers, our results can contribute to knowledge of how emotional experiences can be triggered in students during secondary class PE. However, practical implications based on our research results are hypothetical. Therefore, it can be assumed that teachers can relate to the four identified triggers. They may focus on their students’ interests to contribute to the attractiveness of the task, better cooperation, and interaction in motor tasks. This might affect social belonging and strategies for setting individual goals to improve students’ perceptions of competence. Finally, teachers may use teaching methods supporting autonomy in order to meet the students’ needs for autonomy. Nevertheless, these practical implications are not analyzed with an empirical methodology. Thus, before integrating the given results into teachers’ work in PE, different pedagogical interventions have to be analyzed empirically.

5. Conclusions

A crucial part of PE is increasing young people’s commitment and decreasing their dropout rates in physical activities and sports in a lifelong perspective. In this context, understanding students’ emotional experiences is important. The present results show specific mechanisms that function as triggers. These are the attractiveness of the task, social belonging, perceived competence, and autonomy concerning emotional experience. These triggers are already known in various motivational theories, for example as basic needs to achieve intrinsic motivation [ 47 ]. In the context of PE, it has to be analyzed if teachers may provide, for example, activities that have relevance for the students, interactive activities, exercises differentiated according to the students’ abilities and vary PE topics after asking students for their ideas. Additionally, this explicit knowledge about students’ emotional experiences due to internal and external triggers may support teachers in elaborating students’ emotional competences. For example, teachers may sensitize students for their own emotional experiences by asking them to name their emotions after the teacher induced a trigger in PE. It is not only important that the identified triggers should be analyzed by pedagogical research to help PE teachers in terms of building a lifelong adherence to physical activity in their students, but also that they are built upon in further research aiming to integrate the role of emotions into already existing theories like the SDT. Future research should focus on the role of emotions for self-determined motivation, for example, to answer the question if emotions have a function as a signal to develop a self-determined motivation.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all schools, teachers and students who participated in this study. Additionally, we would like to thank Mrs. Sophie-Catherine Görtler and Mr. Andrew Cave for their engagement in proofreading the manuscript.

Interview questions and schema of the interview guideline used in the present study.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, S.L. and D.J.; methodology, S.L. and D.J.; validation, S.L. and D.J.; formal analysis, S.L.; investigation, S.L.; data curation, S.L.; writing—original draft preparation, S.L.; writing—review and editing, S.L. and D.J.; visualization, S.L.; supervision, D.J.; project administration, S.L.; funding acquisition, S.L.

The corresponding author was financially supported by a PhD scholarship of the Excellence Initiative of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.