T.A. Danilenko
Ural State University of Physical Culture and Sport, Chelyabinsk

Key words: veteran athletes, career, competences.

Relevance. The quality of work of modern specialists in the field of physical culture and sport can be improved provided the development of professional competence. We define competence as the willingness of a subject to effectively use internal and external resources to achieve a set goal. Competency is associated with the basic skills, using which a specialist can handle a wide range of issues, which provides social and professional mobility for an individual, readiness for changes and creative search, the ability to interact with a team, resolve conflicts and problems [4].

Some domestic authors consider competency of a specialist in physical culture and sport by the level of mastery of important personality traits, such as: pedagogical expertise, awareness, empathy, ability to develop his/her personality traits and professional practical experience [1; 5, P. 60].

According to S.A. Khazova, important personality traits for career success (IPTCS) are considered as a set of personality traits that have formed during professional sports activity, which include: cooperativeness, initiative, responsibility, intellectual flexibility, ability to take right decisions fast, purposefulness, creativity, communicability, desire for self-development, honesty, self-confidence, self-presentation skills, professional mobility [6].

The purpose of the study was to conduct a comparative sociological analysis of the level of important personality traits for career success of active athletes and veteran athletes.

Materials and methods. A sociological survey was conducted and involved 46 veteran athletes aged 40-60 years from Chelyabinsk. The first group consisted of 24 candidate masters, the second group - 22 athletes with the title of master of sport and higher in the chosen sport. The quality of specialists in physical culture and sport was assessed using the technique of M.I. Luk’yanova which estimates the level of competences of specialists in physical culture and sport based on the display of important personality traits for career success (IPTCS):

- empathy - is seen as the ability of a person to feel and share the experiences of other person, warm-heartedness, helpfulness, respect and understanding being essential here [3, p. 58];

- reflection – is, according to the author, the subject’s self-conception and finding out how others evaluate his personal characteristics;

– sociability - the tendency to be able to establish personal relationships through a formed manner of communication of an individual, to maintain and create conditions for joint activities;

- personal flexibility - a competence, which shows the willingness of an individual to compete, be mobile and creative in the ever-changing social situations [6];

- emotional appeal - is the ability to win over people around by being nice, by personal appearance, facial expressions, gestures, which contributes to the rapid adaptation of the person in any situation, thus it simplifies the communication, the ability to find the right form of communication with the people and keep personal dignity and authority [2, p. 23-25​​];

- cooperativeness - this quality implies that the specialist is ready for any form of interaction and in the combination of reflection, flexibility, empathy and sociability provides pronounced cooperativeness.

To get an objective opinion about the display of important personality traits for career success of specialists an expert committee was established consisting of five members: the chairman of the domiciliary board of veteran athletes and four activists from the group of veteran athletes. Each expert was to consider six qualities of the subjects selected in the experiment and evaluate them on a 6-point scale using the technique of M.I. Luk’yanova providing own quality assessment criteria: 5 – the quality is displayed frequently and is pronounced; 4 – displayed more frequently rather than not; 3 – displayed from time to time, on occasion; 2 - displayed very rarely; 1 - is completely lacking; 0 - can not be estimated.

Results and discussion. According to the processed data analysis using the proposed technique, the Group 2, which included athletes with the sports titles of master of sport, master of sports of international class, honored master of sports, had higher levels of important personality traits for career success compared to the Group 1 with veteran athletes, who were not so highly skilled. The results of the study are presented in Table.

Table. Determination of the significance of differences by the Student’s t-test between elite athletes and competitive athletes after finishing sports career

Conclusion. When comparing the results of the sociological survey it was noted that the level of important personality traits for career success was higher in the second group (elite athletes) compared with the first one (competitive athletes). According to the findings of the sociological survey, five qualities out of six (empathy, sociability, personal flexibility, cooperativeness, emotional appeal) are statistically significant and have a higher level of professional competency. This indicates that elite athletes, who have finished their sports career, can professionally solve the problems of sports activity in the society, which is very important for further development and strengthening of health of working people of the country.

References

1. Bystritskaya, E.V. Projective approach to creation of professional and pedagogical competency of an expert in the field of physical culture and sport / E.V. Bystritskaya // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury. – 2007. – № 11. – P. 50–55. (In Russian)
2. Danilenko, T.A. Emotional appeal of high-class athletes who have finished sports career, in work in the field of physical culture and sport / Actual problems of physical culture and sport: Collected scientific method. works of the department TiMPE. - Chelyabinsk: UralSUPC, 2013. – 112 P. (In Russian)
3. Ivanov, I.B. Psychological counseling as a way of helping athletes who are finishing and having finished sports career: Ph.D. thesis / I.B. Ivanov. – St. Petersburg, – 2009. – 196 P. (In Russian)
4. Matrosova, O.Yu. Competence model of training specialists in Physical Culture and Sport / O.Yu. Matrosova // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury. – 2011. – № 2. – P. 17. (In Russian)
5. Mikhaylova, T.V. Socio-pedagogical bases of trainer's activity: monograph / T.V. Mikhaylova. – Moscow: Fizicheskaya kul'tura, 2009. – 288 P. (In Russian)
6. Khazova, S.A. Personality traits of competitive specialist in physical culture and sport / S.A. Khazova // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury. – 2008. – № 12. – P. 64–68. (In Russian)

Corresponding author: dta69@mail.ru