Pre-Service University Training, Body Expression and Self-Concept

Body Expression (BE) has been defined in the past few decades as a discipline within Physical Education (PE) with very particular characteristics and a strong emotional component. In this study, a BE program was applied with university Physical Activity and Sports Sciences (PASS) students from six consecutive academic years: three prior to and three during the COVID-19 pandemic. A pre-post design was used to determine how the BE program affected the university students’ self-concept (SC). Thus, a questionnaire with a multidimensional approach to this construct was administered, with dimensions closely related to the BE program characteristics. The results revealed significant improvements in the final SC, compared to the initial SC. The men reported lower SC values than the women before the program’s implementation, but higher at the end. Therefore, the change was greater in the men, so the program may have had an equalizing effect between the groups. It was also verified that the pandemic had particularly affected the women.