Abstract:

The negative side effects of the coronavirus epidemic include forced social isolation and severely limited opportunities for physical activity among university students during online teaching and e-learning. The search for new educational strategies within the study programs of future experts in physical education and sport in Slovakia is gaining special importance. In the current period of the COVID-19 pandemic, for two weeks now, restrictions on physical activity lead to a measurable decrease in physical fitness, impaired metabolism and reduced expenditure, which has negative effects on the health and quality of life of university students (Schleicher, OECD 2020; Burns 2020). Our goal was to identify changes in the physical activity and movement regime of students during the academic year limited by the pandemic. The research methods were the analysis of physical activity and the measurement of volume characteristics - the number of steps, daily energy expenditure (Tudor-Locke and Basset 2004) within the semester and examination period of the academic year. During the four-month research, we recorded the values of the number of steps taken and the energy expenditure from Garmin Vivosport pedometers to 114 university students aged 21-24. We used the Mann-Whitney U-test and the effect size coefficient (Cohen 1988; Sheskin 2007) to evaluate the significance of the differences between the selected indicators. Research results: During the pandemic, an overall a reduction in physical activity and increase in sedentary behaviour was observed in university students. The results showed that vigorous physical activities (VPA) decreased by 22.8% (p < 0.001), walking time by 46.2% (p < 0.001), weekly sitting time increased about 32,4% (p < 0.001). Based on the research, we state that undergraduates of physical education and sports belong to the average physical activity in terms of reduced volume of physical activity. The average values of daily energy expenditure were met at 52.57% for boys and only 65.1% for girls. During the pandemic period, they do not meet the recommended standard of daily energy expenditure, they are below the limit of achieving health benefits. This can have a negative impact on their future didactic competencies. Recommendations: the results achieved became the starting point for proposing remedies to improve the quality of the students' teaching process during the Covid 19 pandemic. Special online movement exercises, individual movement programs and strategies have been developed to adjust the movement stereotypes of future physical education and sports professionals.

Keywords:

Inactivity, motivation, online education, survey.