THE PERCEPTION OF WATER AEROBICS PARTICIPANTS IN RELATION TO THE QUALITY OF THE INSTRUCTOR

RESUMO

Francisco Campos, Damien Craveiro, Daniel Alves, Francisco Bernardo, Francisco Cardoso, Fernando Martins, Rui Mendes, Ricardo Gomes

The water aerobics instructor, the responsible for providing the service, have a very important role in the participants perception of quality, satisfaction and loyalty. The aim of this study is to: a) determine and compare the perception of water aerobics participants, regarding the quality of instructors, according to the age; b) determine and compare the perception of water aerobics participants, regarding the quality of instructors, according to the experience of practice. A questionnaire (QIF-AG) was used to assess the quality of the group fitness activities instructor, applied to 163 participants. According to the age, there are significant differences in the categories of communication, gaiety and assiduity, generally coming from the participants with [40 to 50 [years of age, who present a lower quality perception compared to the other groups in study. Regarding the second objective, according to the experience of practice, the differences occur in the categories motivation, punctuality, musical skills, innovation, dedication, technical execution, as well as in the technicalpedagogical quality dimension, coming from the group of [3 to 4 [years of experience, which also present an inferior perception of quality when compared with the other groups under analysis. Considering the obtained results, it is possible to conclude that the quality is perceived in a different way, according to the characteristics of the participants (age and experience), and that the water aerobics instructor must adapt the intervention considering such perception, in the sense of keeping the participants satisfaction and loyalty, thus avoiding the dropout of sports practice