PhD, Associate Professor O.I. Kuzmina¹
Dr. Med., Professor V.Y. Lebedinsky^{1, 2}
PhD O.A. Shvachun^3
1Irkutsk National Research Technical University, Irkutsk
²Irkutsk State University, Irkutsk
³Russian State University of Justice, Voronezh

Keywords: health protection, students, physical education technologies, healthy lifestyle, physical development, physical fitness.

Background. The ongoing global digitalization of the modern labor markets driven by the socio-economic and geopolitical transformations the world over urges the national education communities take special efforts to improve the professional specialist training systems with a special priority to the graduates’ health standards which are ranked high on the list of priorities of the national educational policies. The social requirements to the professional and personality qualities of the human resource generated by the academic specialist training system make a special emphasis on its physical education and health values and priorities and healthy lifestyle.

The burden on national expectations on the new generation that is expected to lead the national economic and technological progress implies the future specialists being highly determined and successful in the studies and professional careers, proficient in the data flow processing and control and competent in the health protection and improvement issues. It should be noted, however, that many university students are still disinterested in the traditional forms of physical education, physically inactive and largely unmotivated for habitual physical education and healthy lifestyles. This is the reason why the academic education community persistently looks for new physical education models and tools to effectively encourage and mobilize students for the academic physical education and healthy lifestyle cultivation initiatives and motivate them, with a special priority to the student-educator cooperation improvement aspects [1]. 

Objective of the study was to theoretically substantiate, design and test benefits of new academic physical education and healthy lifestyle cultivation technologies for habitual physical activity.

Methods and structure of the study. The study was run at Irkutsk National Research Technical University (INRTU) in 2007-2019. The first stage (2007-2008) of the study was designed to form and excel the academic legal and regulatory framework for the health protection and improvement initiatives. At the second stage (2009) of the study, we developed a comprehensive academic healthy lifestyle encouraging and health rating method. The third stage (2010-2011) of the study included a Health Passport development and implementation program with a universal health test and monitoring toolkit. And at the fourth (2012-2019) stage of the study, we systematized and theoretically analyzed the study findings to produce practical recommendations on how the new academic physical education and healthy lifestyle cultivation technologies should be implemented and promoted in the national academic educational system.

Since 2007, the IRNITU’s health programs were headed by the Physical Progress Monitoring Research Laboratory (PPMRL) and Health Technologies Center that keeps an academic health database with are more than 50,000 individual health test records of the basic and preparatory health groups and special health groups. The PPMRL and Health Technologies Centers have developed, based on the relevant study reports [4-6] and own research data, the following basic guidelines and practical recommendations for the new physical education and healthy lifestyle cultivation technologies.

1. For the health benefits of the academic physical education service being realized, the students should be aware of its great resource with the relevant intellectual, technological, mobilization and activation aspects, motivations, values and priorities. The traditional priority to only the physical activation aspect in the physical education curriculum is no more effective enough since the physical education service needs to be reformed to make a special emphasis on the intellectual and socio-psychological progress aspects to fully satisfy the natural physical activation needs of the students. Therefore, practical benefits of the academic physical education service should be prioritized in the academic studies and supported by modern physical education models and tools geared to cultivate healthy lifestyle in the student communities.

2. For the students being effectively motivated for the new physical education and healthy lifestyle cultivation service, a special emphasis in the physical education service shall be made on the health aspects and individual health agendas, with the trainings being customized for the actual health groups, physical development and physical fitness test rates, individual anthropometric characteristics, functionalities and psychological needs and specifics.

3. The integrated health-centered physical education service model implies the trainees’ health being rated in the academic process in many aspects including the general health, physical fitness, physical development and socio-economic wellbeing. The health progress test and monitoring physical education components shall give a high priority to the modern digital automated health test systems to facilitate the physical education service customizing and management solutions. Thus the INRTU’s Health Passport Program [3] makes it possible to: profile and analyze the individual progress on a comprehensive basis with every internal and external factor of influence on health being taken into account; develop regional physical fitness and physical development standards (for the Baikal region); analyze the exposures to the key health risk factors in the youth communities; and take timely and adequate disease-prevention initiatives. The Health Passport Program includes the following modules: Background Data; Risk Factors of the Key Diseases with Social Implications; Social Status; General Health; Physical Development; Physical Fitness; and Health Protection and Healthy Lifestyle Cultivation Technologies: Basics and Benefits. The HP Program provides the means to test and analyze health on a comprehensive individualized basis and generate analytical health reports for any sample.

4. The academic health physical education toolkit formation projects will be facilitated by the Health Technologies Centers coordinating the efforts to implement modern health technologies in the physical education service and academic environments to secure progress in the physical and mental health standards. The Health Technologies Centers will be responsible for the health education, medical and disease prevention service plus the relevant healthy and sporting lifestyle promotion campaigns supported by an extensive university health database and analyses.

5. We recommend to complement the efforts to motivate and lure students in the habitual physical practices based on the academic physical education service by new physical activation forms and mass sporting events and movements of special appeal for the youth communities including flash mobs, dance sport festivals supported by the GTO Complex elements, intellectual competitions, sports experts’ tournaments, quiz games, exhibitions, presentations, physical education based quest games etc. – to promote the Olympic values and competences in the youth communities, advance the sporting cultural and humanistic agendas and help the young people open up their spiritual and ethical resources.

Results and discussion. For the last decade the academic health system has reported low health standards of the university entrants. In 2007 the INRTU health service qualified more than a half of the first-year students with the basic and preparatory health groups (52.5% and 16.3%, respectively), and only 23.3% with the special health groups – that was the lowest special health groups rate for the study period [2]. It should be noted that the basic health group share varied around 50% (from 40.6% in 2009 to 57.2% in 2012) for the study period. The subsequent annual health tests found no significant changes in the students’ health standards. It was only since 2014 when the Physical Education Department launched the new physical activation and healthy lifestyle cultivation models that the basic health group shares grew to 69.1% and 67.9% as a result of the post-first- and post-second-year health tests for account of the preparatory group shares contracting to 6.1% and 6.5%, respectively. Qualified for the special health groups at that time were 23.4% and 24% of the first- and second-year students, respectively.

We run a questionnaire survey to rate actual benefit of the new physical activation and healthy lifestyle cultivation technologies (including dance sport festivals, flash mobs, etc.) – to find that most (93.6%) of the respondents appreciate the healthy lifestyle advancement events and projects, with 91.7% of the sample reportedly being motivated by the latter for the habitual physical education and sports. Benefits of the new technologies were verified by the progresses in the physical health test rates in every health group under the study.

Thus the 2008 versus 2019 health tests found progress of the sample in the endurance rating 1000m race test, with the groups rated ‘low’ and ‘below average’ on the physical development and physical fitness scales [3] found to contract by 16.9%; and the ‘moderate’ and ‘above average’ groups to grow by 7.9% and 6.9%, respectively. In the standing long jump test, the ‘low’ rated group contracted by 11.6% due to the growth in the ‘average’ and ‘above average’ rated groups (by 2.9% and 16.6%, respectively). The sample also showed progress in the prone push-ups test, with the ‘low’ and ‘below average’ groups found to contract by 35.7%, and the ‘average’, ‘above average’ and ‘high’ rated groups found to grow by 16.5%, 21.3% and 72.2%, respectively; with the similar progress in the physical development tests.

Conclusion. The study data and analyses showed benefits of the new academic physical education and healthy lifestyle cultivation technologies as verified by the surveyed growth of the students’ interest in the habitual physical education and sporting practices and lifestyles. The technologies were found to effectively develop the physical education / sporting values and priorities and contribute to the health protection and improvement agendas of the students, with the clear benefits for their progress in the socializing qualities and skills and competitiveness on the labor markets.

References

1. Leyfa A.V., Zheleznyak Yu.D., Perelman Yu.M. Cohesion of physical activity, health and quality of life of students. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury. 2015.No.11. pp. 41­43.
2. Kuzmina O.I., Lebedinsky V.Yu., Kudryavtsev M.D. Monitoring as an control instrument of and the basis for the design of the educational environment (physical education) of students. European works of social and behavioral sciences. 2018. pp. 683­687.
3. Lebedinsky V.Yu., Kolokoltsev M.M., Maslova E.S., et al. Health monitoring in subjects of educational process in universities «Health passport». Irkutsk: IrSTU publ., 2008.268 p.
4. Leifa A.V. Social foundations of enhancement of student physical activity in context of their quality of life. Fizicheskoe vospitanie studentov. 2013.no.3. pp. 35–41.
5. Lubysheva L.I. Sociology of Physical Culture and Sports. M .: Akademia publ., 2010.  207 p.
6. Qja P. Descriptive epidemiology of health-­related physical activity and fitness. Research Quarterly for Exercise and sport. 1995. no. 66(4). pp. 303­312. doi.org/10.1080/02701367.1995.10607916

Corresponding author: www.ariana.ru@mail.ru

Abstract

Objective of the study was to substantiate modern pedagogical technologies and new types of motor activity in application to students’ training process aimed to involve them in regular academic physical education classes and form a healthy lifestyle.

Methods and structure of the study. The study was carried out at the premises of Irkutsk National Research Technical University from 2007 through 2019. The first stage (2007-2008) was focused on the formation and further improvement of the university legal framework concerning the problems of preservation and promotion of students’ health. The second stage (2009) was devoted to the development of a common methodology in the field of protection and assessment of health of the educational process subjects. The third stage (2010-2011) consisted in the development of the structure and content of a unified health monitoring system for students – "Health Passport". The fourth stage (2012-2019) was devoted to the systematization and theoretical analysis of study findings, development of practical recommendations and introduction of new pedagogical technologies and new types of students' motor activity into the university’s activity.

Results and discussion. The studies undertaken during the past decade indicate a steadily low level of health in students entering the 1st year of study. In 2007, more than half of the first-year INRTU students were attributed to the main and preparatory health groups (52.5% and 16.3%, respectively), while the special health group was made of the smallest (over all years of study) number of students (23.3%). Comparing the data obtained in 2008 and 2019, it was found that in the endurance test (1000 m run), the number of female students with the "low" and "below average" rates (under the standards of physical development and physical fitness of students) decreased by 16.9%. At the same time, there was an increase in their number in terms of the "average" (by 7.9%) and "above average" (6.9%) rates. In the standing long jump test, the number of female students with the "low" rates reduced by 11.6% through expanding the "average" (2.9%) and "above average" (16.6%) clusters. Some significant shifts were observed in the push-up test: the number of female students with the "low" and "below average" rates decreased by 35.7%, while the number of those with the "average" (by 16.5%), "above average" (by 21.3%) and "high" (by 72.2%) rates increased. A similar situation was observed in terms of the physical development rates.

Conclusion. The use of modern pedagogical technologies and new types of motor activity in the university’s activity helps attract students to regular academic physical education classes and contributes to the formation of their value attitude to a healthy lifestyle.