UNIVERSITY STUDENTS COGNITIVE PERCEPTIONS OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Abstract

Physical education is considered an important pedagogical phenomenon that simultaneously contributes to individuals’ social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development in a holistic manner. Considering that today’s university students are being shaped as mature members of future society, it is of great importance to examine their perceptions and conceptualizations of physical education through metaphors. The purpose of this study is to investigate university students’ metaphorical perceptions of the concept of physical education. A phenomenological research design, one of the qualitative research approaches, was employed in the study. The study group consisted of 20 university students enrolled in a higher education institution during the 2025–2026 academic year. In the analysis of the data obtained from the study, content analysis was used, as there were no predetermined categories and the categories needed to be developed directly by the researcher based on the data.