Motives to begin physical education studies. Comparative analysis in Algeria and Wallonia

There are many reasons explaining why students choose one professional project and/or an academic programme. Usually, they consider higher education according to various aspects focusing on the content of the programme as well as on professions to which the latter leads. This study is in the field on comparative education. It offers a comprehensive reading of two education systems in a spirit of openness and expansion of knowledge. With inspiration from two studies conducted in the education of physical educators in very different cultural contexts (Research Group MJS, 1993, for Algeria – Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire, 2003, for French-speaking Belgium), we have assumed that the students’ motives for registering in studies in physical education should differ considerably.
The purpose of this research has therefore been to determine the reasons motivating students to begin a physical education programme at the university or at a non university context.
Our research was based, firstly, on the analysis of official texts concerning the organization of higher education in the field of physical education and, secondly, on data collected from the actions involved in four educational institutions, two in the Algiers region and two in the Liege region. In both cultural contexts, one institution belonged to one university and the other one was organized in a non university context. Our results relate to a total sample of 290 subjects (40 members of teaching staffs, 108 students and 142 graduates). The staff members were interviewed while the subjects of two other groups have responded to questionnaires. The Arabic version of each instrument was translated from an original French version. One expert has assured the validity check. In this paper, we are focusing our attention on the analysis of the responses provided by the three types of actors to a question aiming to identify, through four levels Lickert scales, the degree of importance accorded by subject to nine reasons of registration for studies in physical education. Answer were encoded in a computer database and processed using the Statistica software (Stat Soft, 2006).
No significant difference was identified when comparing the answers of respondents. However, we noticed that the love of sport and the desire to do sport belonged to the most important reasons for the registration of the new students for training programs in physical education. Cultural context does not seem to affect the opinions of the subjects.