Impact of new professional profiles of the sports kinesiologist, preventive and adapted physical activities kinesiologist and of sports manager in the current university education

Abstract

In Italy, the 2021 sport reform established the new profession of kinesiologist. The study plans, in addition to respecting the educational objectives to become a physical education teacher, must also be compatible with the profile of the kinesiologist. Purpose: This study aims to understand the impact that this reform has had on sport sciences masterly students in Italy, in terms of perceptions and opinions, and what kind of feedback it has had in their university education, in terms of coherence.   Methods: The sample represents 288 sport sciences masterly students divided into sports kinesiologist (N=162) mean age of 25.7 (± 5.7); kinesiologist of preventive and adapted physical activities (N=66) mean age of 27.3 (± 7.1); sports manager (N=60) mean age of 27.4 (± 9.3). A questionnaire submitted through Google Forms and sent to masterly students of the University of Salento and Salerno was used. All data were presented as means and standard deviations, using the chi-squared test. The level of significance was set with P ≤ 0.05. Results: The knowledge of the sport reform and the impact of the sport reform among the 3 masterly classes gave a non-significant result (P=0.30; P=0.63). The perceptions of job opportunities and strengths offered by this reform, for each of the professional figures, gave a significant result (P=0.00; P=0.00). The coherence of one's university education with the respective professional profile was found to be significant (P=0.00; P=0.01). Conclusions: The knowledge of the sport reform is homogeneous in the 3 masterly classes analysed. Perceptions on job opportunities, LM67 and LM68 courses are affected by the spaces already occupied by sports federations and health figures; while LM47 showed some confidence in the new opportunities that this profile offers. Finally, some reflections emerged regarding the need to have a university education more coherence with the professional profile.