The attitude of the faculty of sport and physical education students toward cross-country running

The syllabus of the track and field subject at the Faculty of Sport and Physical Education includes cross-country running - running in nature. The main objective of this study was to determine the structure and intensity of students' attitude toward the cross-country running. Besides, the objective was to check the connection of the students' attitude towards the cross-country running and the achieved results of cross-country running, as well as of doing sport and recreational running. The sample comprised 69 students of the second year of studies who attended the cross-country running classes. For measuring the attitude toward the cross-country running, the Connotative differential instrument was used consisting of 15 pairs of opposite adjectives presented in a form of seven-part bipolar scale grouped into three dimensions: affective, cognitive and conative. This instrument was applied within an extensive questionnaire which included questions about doing sports, jogging, as well as the results of cross-country running at the end of the teaching period. The descriptive analysis has shown that students have a positive attitude of moderate intensity toward cross-country running, observed through all three dimensions of attitude. The correlation analysis between the dimensions of attitude toward cross country running and the results achieved at cross country running showed that the correlations are negative and statistically significant, suggesting that if the result of running is better, the students' attitude toward cross country running is more positive. Competitive sport is not connected with the quality of attitude toward cross-country running. The results obtained by the study give grounds for assuming that, given that attitudes are an important component of the motivational aspect of personality, it can be expected that the students' positive attitude toward cross country running would contribute to cross country running application in their future professional activity and encourage this form of physical activity.