This study aims to explore police students’ self-rated mental health and physical activity levels and the relationship between them. Based on longitudinal and cross-sectional data (N = 722), two scales on mental health orientation were developed. The scales and levels of physical activity were analyzed using t-test, ANOVA, and X2. During police education, (1) the level of physical activity decreases for men, (2) there is a decline in positive health orientation for both sexes, and (3) women report a more negative health orientation. This raises questions regarding whether “enough” is done to provide police students with sufficient conditions for improving their health.

Introduction: In Sweden, police education should promote students’ physical activity and mental health. According to national goals, police students should be provided with sufficient conditions to develop and maintain advantageous exercise habits and tools to handle various mentally and physically demanding tasks. The national goals also state that students’ physical fitness must be better at graduation than what the requirements are for admission (see Krugly et al., 2022). Although the improvement of students’ physical fitness and mental health are national goals, there is a general lack of knowledge regarding: 1) police students physical and mental health, especially from a Swedish perspective; and 2) how well police education promotes students’ level of physical activity during education. Against this background, the aim is to explore police students’ mental health and level of physical activity during police education in Sweden.

Methods: The data derives from the largest project in Sweden on police students’ physical and mental health, and consists of longitudinal data on police students answers of a self-rated questionnaire about exercise habits and mental health (N = 785). The data used in this study was gathered between 2019–2021, and consisted of four data collection points, from two police educations in Sweden. The analysis was conducted in two steps. First, exploratory- and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to create scales for mental health orientation. Second, these scales, together with the variable exercise habits, were used as outcome variables in t-tests, X2 test and ANOVA. Effect size measurements were calculated and interpreted based on established guidelines.

Results: The results show high psychometric support for two scales named positive health orientation and negative health orientation. Based on the scales and the variable of exercise habits, three primarily results emerge: 1) the levels of physical training for men decrease during education; 2) there are gender differences showing that women have a more negative health orientation; and, 3) the positive mental health orientation decreases during education for both men and women.

Discussion: Swedish police education should prepare students for physically and mentally demanding work. However, as this study concludes, this tends to not be the case, especially given that both the level of physical activity and the positive mental health orientation decrease during education. This raises questions on whether the Swedish police education is doing “enough” to provide the students with adequate conditions for improving their mental and physical health.

Krugly, S., Bjärsholm, D., Jansson, A., Rosendal Hansen, A., Hansson, O., Brehm, K., Datmo, A., Hafsteinsson Östenberg, A., & Vikman, J. (2022). A retrospective study of physical fitness and mental health among police students in Sweden. The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles. doi.org/10.1177/0032258X221089576

Little is known about the physical and mental health among police students. Based on data on Swedish police students’ physical fitness (N = 1736) and mental health (N = 407), the results show that: (a) there are gender differences; (b) the physical fitness changes during police education; in general, the students get stronger but less flexible, and the aerobic endurance increases for women but decreases for men; and (c) students’ self-reported physical activity and mental health affect their perceived police ability differently in relation to gender. Consequently, this study questions if the Swedish police education is preparing the students adequately for their future profession.

IntroductionIn physical education (PE), equivalence is a central goal in welfare states around the world. In Sweden, this means that the subject of PE should be equal and that schools are to compensate for students’ different backgrounds, such as family background, socioeconomic and migration background. However, even if equivalence is a central goal, little is known about how equivalence in PE in Sweden has changed both during the last decades and in comparison to the students’ average grade from all school subjects (so-called merit value). One well-established approach to examine equivalence in educational research is to analyze the correlation between full siblings’ grades. Although this is a valuable approach to examine equivalence, no studies have used it in PE (Jansson et al., 2022). Using this approach, the aim of this study is to analyze how equivalence in PE in Sweden has changed, both over the last two decades and in relation to the students’ merit value.MethodsThis study includes the total population of students (N=6,961,173) that were enrolled in Swedish schools between 2000-2017 in school year 6 and 9. The method is based on analyzing the correlation between full siblings that are born within a three-year period and their annually standardized grades in PE and merit value, using variance decomposition. One main advantage with this measure is that it considers all the aspects that full siblings share (e.g., socioeconomic, upbringing, living conditions and parenting). The analysis provides information about the extent of the total variation in PE grades and merit value that are explained by the family background of the students.ResultsIn relation to the total variation in students’ grades in PE and merit value, the proportion explained by variation between full siblings has increased between the years 2000-2017. Consequently, the results indicate that the importance of students’ family background, over the past two decades, has become more important for both students’ grades in PE and their merit value. However, the importance of family background has increased considerably more for students grades in PE, compared to their merit value. Furthermore, the largest increase in sibling correlation is found within the group of students born abroad.DiscussionPreliminary findings indicate that equivalence in PE in Sweden has deteriorated between 2000 and 2017. Possible explanations are that: 1) schools, and in particular PE, has become worse at compensating for students with different backgrounds (e.g., socioeconomic); and 2) the students have become more heterogeneous, and as such making it more difficult to compensate for students’ different backgrounds.

Jansson, A., Sundblad, G., Lundvall, S., Bjärsholm, D., & Norberg, J. (2022). Students’ perceived learning in physical education: variations across students’ gender and migration background in Sweden. Sport, Education and Society, 27(4), 421-433.Doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2021.1878129

Purpose: The aim of this study was to critically examine previous studies’ claims about the magnitude of gender differences and gender inequality in physical education (PE) in Sweden. Method: The data were based on students’ (N = 39,980) perceptions of PE and were gathered from four large research projects in Sweden. Three effect size measures (Cramer’s V, rsquared, and Cohen’s d) were calculated for gender differences. Results: In general, there are small gender differences; and after controlling for students’ grade, “sports capital,” and parents’ “educational capital,” the differences are practically irrelevant. Conclusion: This study provides compelling evidence that there are small, or even irrelevant, gender differences in students’ perceptions of PE in Sweden. Moreover, given that previous research asserts that large gender differences can be used as an indicator of inequality, this study suggests that gender inequality issues related to students’ perceptions of PE are relatively small.

Working as a police officer involves mentally and physically demanding tasks. During the Swedish police education, students should be provided with sufficient conditions to develop and maintain advantageous exercise habits and tools to handle mentally and physically demanding tasks (see Krugly et al., 2022). However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding Swedish police students exercise habits and overall mental- and physical health.

The aim is to explore police students’ mental health and physical activity levels during police education in Sweden.

The data consisted of police students answers of a self-rated questionnaire about their physical and mental health. The data used in this study was gathered between 2019–2021, and consist of four data collection points, from two police educations in Sweden. The analysis was conducted in two steps. First, exploratory- and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to create scales for health orientation. Second, these scales were used as outcome variables in t-tests, X2 test and ANOVA. Effect size measurements (Cohens, d, Crames V and Phi) were calculated and interpreted based on well establish guidelines.

Two scales were developed (i.e. positive health orientation and negative health orientation), and both showed high psychometric support. Based on the scales, two primarily results emerged: 1) results showed that women had a more negative health orientation in general and that positive health orientation, for both genders, decreased between semesters one to four; and 2) more women conducted two hours (or more) per week of physical exercise. Moreover, physical training among men decreased continuously during their education.

Conclusions and ImplicationsBased on the results, this study questions whether police education in Sweden doing enough to prepare students for a mentally and physically demanding profession.

På Plikt- och prövningsverket genomförs flera olika tester. När det kommer till att testa de prövandes fysiska förmåga används bland annat ett konditionstest på cykel och ett isokinetiskt styrketest som kallas Isokai.I den här texten ges information om testerna, grundläggande träningsråd för att klara dessa samt råd inför fortsatt träning. Råden är uppdelade i två delar. I den första delen beskrivs träningsråd för styrketräning och i den andra för konditionsträning.

Students’ perceived learning in physical education (PE) is an important yet neglected area of research. Increased knowledge about students’ perceived learning can provide teachers with useful information to promote meaningful learning experiences in PE. Moreover, perceived learning can potentially be an alternative measurement to school grades when analyzing equality of outcome. Given that gender and migration background are associated with equality issues in PE, these groups are of particular focus in this study. With this background, the aim of this paper is threefold: (a) to explore students’ perceived learning in PE in Sweden, (b) to analyze what perceptions of PE are most prominent, and (c) present a way to quantitatively illustrate how perceptions about PE vary across gender and migration background. The analysis was based on a question about students’ perceived learning and was conducted in two steps. First, the students’ answers were categorized using qualitative content analysis. The analysis shows that the perceived learning in PE can be categorized into the following categories: ‘Physical doing’, ‘Emotional experiences’, ‘Health’, ‘Do not learn’, ‘Outdoor Education’ and ‘Social interaction’. Second, by quantitatively illustrate all answers in relation to the six categories, the result showed that the category of ‘Physical doing’ (36%) was the most prominent, and thereafter, in descending order are the categories of ‘Emotional experiences’ (22%), ‘Health’ (18%), ‘Do not learn’ (10%), ‘Outdoor Education’ (10%) and ‘Social interaction’ (4%). The results also showed that regardless of gender and migration background, students have somewhat similar perceptions of what they learn in PE. In this study we: (i) present a categorization of students’ perceived learning in PE, (ii) show that physical doing is a prominent aspect in students answers, lastly (iii) by quantitatively illustrate students’ perceived learning in PE, this study also suggest an alternative measurement to analyze equality in PE.