A.V. Zaytsev
National University of mineral resources (Mining University), St. Petersburg

Key words: personal adaptive capacity, students of technical universities, boxing.

Introduction. Personal adaptive capacity is a very complex integrative phenomenon that characterizes adaptabilities of an individual in the social context. It is a set of characteristics that determine the extent and quality of social adaptation of an individual.

By and large, this phenomenon has been studied insufficiently.

Personal adaptive capacity of students of technical universities has not been studied so far. However, this period in the life of every person is the most significant in respect to his life choices formation and professional fulfillment. The very conditions of life of modern students (considerable workload, the need to combine study with work) place high demands on their body and mind adaptabilities.

Therefore, formation of personal adaptive capacity of students as future professionals has a high social value in terms of prevention of social maladjustment during their studies at the university as well as in their professional activity.

For now the mechanisms of personal adaptive capacity formation have been studied extremely insufficiently. However, there are reasons to believe that engagement in physical culture and sports activities can be regarded as one of these mechanisms [1]. There is a term “adaptive potential of physical culture and sports activity” in domestic science [2, 3]. Nevertheless, it was found that the traditional approach to physical training used in the educational process has virtually no effect on the positive dynamics of personal adaptive capacity [1].

Due to a number of features boxing classes can improve the efficiency of personal adaptive capacity of students in physical culture and sports occupations, including: constant variability of conditions of activity (which is a stress factor that tempers the nervous system); available direct confrontation with an opponent (which generates competition skills and killer instinct); the need to respond quickly and effectively to opponent's actions (training reaction rate and tactical thinking), coping with their own emotional state (i.e., improving self-regulation).

The purpose of the study was to estimate the effect from boxing classes on the personal adaptive capacity of technical university students.

Organization of the study. A comparative study was carried out to check the effectiveness of boxing classes in the formation of personal adaptive capacity of students of technical university. The analysis of the scientific literature resulted in the allocation of a list of characteristics of personal adaptive capacity. A scale type questionnaire was designed based on these criteria. First-year students attending boxing classes evaluated the intensity of these characteristics by a 10-point scale twice (before starting the classes and at the end of the academic year). The study involved 38 male students attending boxing classes and 42 students who did not attend them.

Results and discussion. Before boxing classes technical university students had an average level of self-confidence regarding the majority of personal characteristics of adaptive capacity, which corresponds to the normal distribution. The variability of the indices was average.

The most pronounced self-assessment was marked for such qualities as communication skills, courage, endurance and the least - in self-discipline, responsibility and general personal adaptability.

The comparative analysis of numerical values using the Student t-test revealed 12 significant differences (5 of them reach 99% of significance level).

The most significant increase was marked in the self-assessment (at the level of 99%) of the students, attending boxing classes, of such qualities as (listed in descending order of significance of the differences):

Table. Dynamics of self-assessment of personal adaptive capacity of technical universities students attending boxing classes (n = 38)

- self-confidence;

- dominance (ability to have an impact on others);

- willingness to mobilize one’s forces in case of need;

- ability to predict various life situations;

- personal adaptability (flexibility, adaptability).

The students attending boxing classes demonstrated increased self-assessment at 95% of significance level for the following components of personal adaptive capacity:

- courage in coping with various difficulties;

- ability of self-control of emotions and actions;

- purposefulness;

- perseverance in achieving important goals;

- determination;

- independence in judgments and actions;

- personal reactivity.

The students also showed increased self-assessment of some personal adaptive capacity characteristics (such as proactive attitude, risk appetite, self-discipline, endurance), but in this case the differences were not significant and just indicated the presence of a trend (not a regularity) in the formation of personal adaptive capacity.

No effects of forming impact of boxing classes were found as far as such elements of personal adaptive capacity of students as communication skills, responsibility and emotional stability are concerned. No significant differences in the expression of self-assessment of personal adaptive capacity characteristics of the students not attending boxing classes were found (although there was a trend of reduction of some of its indices).

Conclusion. Proceeding from the findings, classes in the boxing sports section can be recommended for first-year students to develop their personal adaptive capacity.

References

1. Vitun, V.G. Formation of adaptive capacity of university students in the course of physical education: abstract of Ph.D. thesis / V.G. Vitun. - Magnitogorsk, 2009. – 20 P. (In Russian)
2. Eremeev, S.N. Training of university teacher for implementing the adaptive capacity of students' sports activity / S.N. Eremeev. - Magnitogorsk, 2011. – 22 P. (In Russian)
3. Ivanova, E.A. Pedagogical conditions of effective implementation of the adaptive capacity of sports activity of technical university students: abstract of Ph.D. thesis / E.A. Ivanova. - Magnitogorsk, 2007. – 18 P. (In Russian)

Corresponding author: panfilio@spmi.ru