Lithuanian students’ attitudes towards noble and honourable sport contest

ENWe think that it is very important to find out, whether there are programmes on Olympism at universities and how we can spread Olympic ideas among students. First of all, we examined the literature sources. Scientific literature analysis led to easier understanding of the importance of moral values, Olympism and Olympic education as well as enabled to reveal the peculiarities of moral values and absorb how sport activity influences moral attitudes and culture. The aim of the study was to investigate and identify Lithuanian students’ attitudes towards noble and honourable sport contest and the values that are developed in sports. We have interviewed 218 students from 16 higher education schools of Lithuania for the research. The research group was chosen randomly as the questionnaire was distributed in Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, and Šiauliai higher education schools. The main part is devoted to investigate students’ attitudes towards noble and honourable sport struggle, comparing those attitudes of the ones’, involved in physical activity and having Olympic event or lectures about Olympism values and norms, with other universities students’ presented data. After receiving the results, we can make a comparison of students’ opinions on honourable and noble sport fight. In this research, quantitative and qualitative analyses have been accomplished. For the statistical procedures, there was the SPSS 15 for Windows via the setting used. For the analysis of quantitative research data, various statistical analysis methods were employed as well. Inside compatibility of questionnaire scales was determined by counting the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Students’ attitudes towards the values of Olympic structure were estimated using the essential components of extraction and Varimax factor rotation method. Differences were considered statistically reliable at the maximum of 5% of the error (p<0.05).It was found that Lithuanian students associate Olympism, firstly, with honesty, secondly – as a way of respect, cultural awareness, optimism, strength of the will, generosity, tolerance towards other nations, etc. Such results are determined by opinion about the Olympic games itself. While analysing the research results, it has emerged that social values, bounded with Olympism, are important for the students. Thus, they find those aspects very important: a sense of community, heartiness, goodness, better world, gentlemanlike behaviour, body and mind harmony, etc. The most important thing is noble and honourable sport contest. Both respondent groups (who do sport activities and who do not do) understand what a noble play is.