Enhancing Safety in PE and School Sports
The research group: “Enhancing Safety in PE and School Sports“ (left to right): Inga Hense, Prof. Horst Hübner, Carolin Becker, Katharina Schniewind, Nina Friedrich, Dr. Rüdiger Hofmann, Dr. Anja Steinbacher, Nils Kappertz.
In 1998, the research group was established in accordance with the then state-wide initiative "Enhancing Safety in PE and School Sports" in North-Rhine-Westphalia. The origin of their work was and still is the high rate of accidents in school sports: Annually, there are about 1.4 million registered and compensated for accidents in kindergartens, schools, colleges and universities. Among these, about half a million take place in school sports. This number results in the fact that about 3-4 % of all insured "students" are affected by a sporting accident annually.
In cooperation with school supervising authorities, the research group has assessed more than 10,000 accidents in school sports within the scope of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. Studies of accidents in school sport at public schools in Westphalia-Lippe, in North Rhine-Westphalia and in Bavaria have been conducted on the basis of a newly-developed and reliable research strategic middle course. In this middle course, students who have been injured in school accidents, and their PE teachers were questioned shortly after the incidents by the use of a questionnaire about the accident.
Some research work, such as "Self-Assessment of Accidents in Schools" and the project "Empirically Verified Balance of Accidents in School Sports in Four Areas of School Authorities," are based mainly on accident reports, while other studies are the result of extensive primary analyses.
On behalf of the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV), manifold primary and secondary studies concerning regional differences of accidents in schools at the state level have been conducted since 2011 to develop relevant preventive measures.
Further information as well as selected results of the project "Self-Assessment" and "School Sport accidents in North Rhine-Westphalia" are displayed in our news section.
Current research and consulting activities of our unit "Enhancing Safety in PE and School Sports":
- Empirical studies of accident occurrences in school sports at the level of federal states and educational authorities
- Recommendations such as, for example, teaching materials for attractive and safe instructions of sports games
- Self-Assessment of accidents in schools in conjunction with sports conferences and state-wide implementation in NRW
