Bridging the Gap in Physical Activity and Sport Among Women University Students: Motivational and Practical Insights for Effective Promotion
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Women’s participation in physical activity (PA) and sport remains lower than that of men, with specific challenges persisting into young adulthood. This study aims to better understand the diverse engagement patterns and motivations of women university students in order to inform targeted, gender-sensitive approaches to PA and sport promotion. A survey was conducted among 2,071 women students aged 18–25 years ( M = 20.01, SD = 1.33) from 16 European universities. Principal component analysis and clustering techniques revealed two main participation styles: “free” (C1 and C2) and “organized” (C3 and C4). The “free” group preferred low-intensity, flexible activities, often self-directed, and supported by digital tools, while the “organized” group thrived in structured, socially supportive environments such as clubs or team sports with coaching. Motivational factors varied considerably: C1 participants did not prioritize a single motivational factor, C2 were primarily motivated by physical condition and appearance, while a combination of enjoyment, affiliation, and psychological well-being drove C3 and C4 participants. The study highlights the need for universities to offer diverse, flexible PA options that cater to different preferences, from autonomous activities facilitated by digital innovations to structured programs that promote social belonging and accountability. Universities can create supportive environments that encourage sustained PA and sport engagement by tailoring interventions to individual motivations and using inclusive communication strategies. These findings provide valuable insights for promoting active lifestyles among women university students and for advancing gender-sensitive approaches to PA and sport promotion.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".