CHANGES IN THE LEVEL AND TYPE OF STUDENTS’ PHYSICAL ACTIVITY BEFORE AND DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

ABSTRACT The current study aims to reveal the changes in the levels of physical activity before and during COVID-19 pandemic among students in 8th to 12th grade. A total of 160 Bulgarian students took part in the study (98 girls – 60%; 62 boys – 40%), with an average age of 16 years. The following methods were used to achieve the set goals: scientific literature review, designing a questionnaire and statistical data analysis with the SPSS software. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences was used for the descriptive statistics, frequencies and revealing significant correlations and differences according to different factors of the subjects in the study. A structured questionnaire was created, which was distributed through the social networks. The obtained results allowed for revealing the main type of physical activity performed before and during the pandemic among the students. The most common physical activity before the pandemic period is the participation in the Physical Education and Sport classes with 51%, and during COVID-19 is the possibility to perform some physical exercises indoors at home – 65%. The study has revealed that after the alleviation of the restrictive measures, a large portion of the students would increase the time for sport and physical activity (54%).