PARENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS SWIM LESSONS ORGANIZED BY THE SCHOOL SPORTS ASSOCIATION OF OSIJEK

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to determine parents’ opinions about the swim school organized by the SchoolSports Association of the city of Osijek. The research was conducted on a sample of 112 parents of children who attended swim lessons. The parents completed an online survey related to swim lessons and their attitudes toward them. The descriptive data indicate that most parents think determining children’ swimming performance level is important for their children’s safety. A smaller number of parents believe that they should be the ones teaching their children to swim. Regarding the impact of swim lessons on the child’s school obligations, the majority of parents agree that absence from regular school is not a problem, nor is the preparation for lessons, and they do not think that the children are overburdened. Some parents indicated it was difficult for them to organize transportation to the swimming pool.
Although most parents deny having no trust in the swim lessons, they also believe that class teachers should accompany students to the pools. They rate the programme so far as very good. Correlation analysis revealed that there is a statistically significant positive, low correlation between parents’ attitudes that they themselves should teach their children to swim and the opinion that swim lessons have a negative effect on the child’s attendance and preparation for classes. It was also found that there is a statistically significant positive, low correlation between the attitude of parents that they themselves should teach their children to swim and trust in the safety of the swim school programme.