PhD, Associate professor N.N. Romanova
Ural State University of Physical Culture, Chelyabinsk

Keywords: humour, emotional control, would-be physical education teacher.

Background. Emotional state control abilities and related problems are rated among the top priority ones in the physical education sector for the reason that the sector is in critical need of modern teachers of physical education highly capable in controlling emotions and establishing a facilitating and friendly environment at training sessions to encourage communication and constructive emotions in the trainees and thereby pursue the key concepts of the modern national policy in the educational process. As we have reported before, it is the reflexive abilities that provide a basis for the human cognitive, communication and creative qualities being freely mobilized and employed since they are largely determined by the individual ability to view the situation from different standpoints and, hence, understand and analyze the potential reasons for disharmonies and/or successes in the process [3].

Objective of the study was to provide a theoretic substantiation for the role of humour in the university educational process as one of the key conditions for the would-be physical education teachers’ reflexive ability development agenda.

Methods and structure of the study. The study was performed at Ural State University of Physical Culture, Chelyabinsk city. Reported in this article are some results of the tests and experimental works completed in the period of 2011-12. Subject to the experiments at the study stage under report were 167 four-year full-time students majoring in the academic Physical Education discipline.

We have developed a special “Psycho-regulation” training curriculum designed to implement our own methodology to help mobilize the trainees’ potential personal resources. It was not unusual that we have faced one-dimensional behavioural models in the study process including the overrated/ underrated self-assessments by some trainees who had the lowest degrees of self-confidence and experienced serious fears when coming beyond the individual comfort zones; with the fears resulting in an aggression as a self-protective reaction and/or increased sensitivity to constructive criticism regardless of high gentle and discreet it was. We made due consideration for these and other personal aspects and traits in the interaction and communication process striving to create a relaxed, balanced, friendly and trustful communication environment with due emphasis on humour as an imperative component of the educational process.

Study results and discussion. It should be noted that the role of humour in the educational process is still largely underestimated by the educational community. As demonstrated by one of the recent opinion polls, many teachers consider it inappropriate and useless in the education sessions and some even rank it among the distracting factors in the learning process. However, the university students polled were generally of the opposite opinion firmly stating that humour is a highly appropriate component of an educational process.

As reported by A.M. Prokhorov and A.L. Sventitskiy, humour may be interpreted as a special sort of ironic communication that harmonically combines mockery and compassion, external comic attitude with the internal involvement in what is deemed to be a laughing matter; and the good-natured and easily amused attitudes to the things that go beyond the commonly accepted standards albeit are harmless to the society [1, 2]. Furthermore, a sense of humour may be described as the individual ability to perceive a variety of contradictions of that kind. Poor sense of humour may be even indicative of the poor intellectual qualities of a personality [2].

In opinion of V.A. Sukhomlinskiy, humour is the play of intellect and emotions that demonstrates the individual intellectual culture, humanity of thought and the degree of moral health of the group involved. Furthermore, he firmly believed that no group educational process may be successful without humour as one of the key communication aspects, and was always prepared to trigger healthy laughing by paradoxical thinking in the audience. Moreover, he supported humour encouragement and development initiatives as an intellectual progress facilitating tool and believed that a thinking process will be cultivated based on the feelings of wonder and joy [4].

We are fully supportive of the above opinions and consider the sense of humour as the combination of positive perceptive, intellectual, emotional, physiological and behavioural communication processes. The ability to see and construct comic situations attracts people, builds up mutual trust and helps notably decrease the situational anxiety levels; in addition, it demonstrates the humorist being intellectually developed and gives him/her the means to control the educational process in a more efficient manner and positively contribute to the emotional control/ reflexion ability development in the trainees.

In the opinion poll under the study, we asked the students to report how often they come across laughable situations in the educational process and how often and high they note and rate the teachers who are inclined to appreciate laughable situations, contribute to them and/or construct them deliberately (see the Diagram 1 hereunder).

Diagram 1. Frequency of laughable situations perceived by university students and teachers (in opinions of the students)

As one can see from Diagram 1 above, students are much more inclined to note comical things than the teachers, since the students’ responses are dominated by Very often, Often and Sometimes. The teachers were found to be more reserved as their responses are dominated by Sometimes and Seldom. Furthermore, 3.4 % of the students opted for the Other responses and mostly explained in them that they face joyful situations all the time regardless of the teacher's character or mood, academic discipline or some other factors.

The students never opted for the Other responses in the context of their teachers' traits, albeit 1.7% of the students polled explained their Seldom response by the fact that most of the teachers are quite monotonous and uninterested in delivering the education material, and it is not unusual that the teachers behave as if they are forced to the unloved educational activity by some circumstances.

In their verbal responses the respondents explained that they were governed by the teacher's ability to feel humour and laughable situations manifested in the usual positive/ uplifted emotional mindsets, smiles, laugh, willingness to contribute to the humoristic situations, joke on his/her own initiative and serve the subject education material with good humour by giving, among other things, positive cases in point to help understand different aspects of the material.

It should be noted, however, that the individual sense of humour may be variable and largely dependent, first of all, on the type of temperament and nature of the student and his/ her intellectual qualities; however, at least half of the students reported to trace and perceive joyful, laughable and otherwise positive circumstances when learning every day.

Furthermore, we asked the students’ opinions on how facilitating/ distracting humour is in the educational process under the new psycho-regulation discipline in the context of the emotional reflexion ability development initiative, and 100% of the students polled responded that humour helps understand, memorize and digest the education material.

The subjective responses of the students have been supported by our annual objective tests designed to explore and rate the subject quality development progress by special tests and experiments using reputable and valid methods and statistical data processing mathematical methods.

It should be noted, however, that the emotional reflexion ability development in the would-be physical education teachers is a labour-intensive process that requires the researcher/ teacher being highly determined and focused. Every situation in the practical educational process need to be explored and analysed in great detail for the class time and even in the off-class hours; and due verbal and written consulting activity needs to be maintained as a key to success of the focused tests and experiments.

When the teacher is reluctant to fully commit his/her work time and even free time to the subject quality development process; and/or demonstrates disinterested attitudes to the group and individual work with the students; and/or avoids keeping in constant touch with the university coaches dealing with young athletes or even with the athletes’ families when the occasion requires, he/she will unlikely be successful in attaining the goals of the process. It is only through an interested attitude to every single trainee and high responsibility for the mental state of the students rather than a focus on the minimal improvements in the performance indicators reported (no matter how reliable they may be), general figures and the desire to summarize and report the minute benefits – that the educational process may be improved and the competency-building approach may be productive.

It may be summarized that our primary assumption of the investigating teacher's positive attitude to humour and efforts to construct and support laughable situations in the process being beneficial for the emotional reflexion ability development process – was proved by the study. The opinion poll data obtained under the study were also supportive of the students’ positive attitudes to humour in the learning process.

Conclusion. Humour in a wide variety of its manifestations was found beneficial for the professional operations of university teachers as it makes it possible to develop the trainees’ emotional reflection abilities on a facilitating basis with an emphasis on easy-going attitudes to the educational process situations and the own/ others individual traits. It should be noted, however, that humour should be reasonably balanced in the process to avoid the emphasis being shifted from the cognitive aspects of the educational process to the laughable ones.

References

1. Bol'shoy entsiklopedicheskiy slovar' (Big Encyclopedic Dictionary) / Ed. by A.M. Prokhorov. – 2nd ed., rev. and sup. – Moscow: Bol'shaya Rossiyskaya entsiklopediya (Big Russian Encyclopedia); St. Petersburg: Norint, 1997. – 1456 p.
2. Kratkiy psikhologicheskiy slovar' (Concise dictionary of psychology) / Ed. by A.L. Sventsitskiy. – Moscow: Prospekt, 2009. – 512 p.
3. Romanova N.N. Eksperimental'noe obosnovanie effektivnosti metodiki razvitiya refleksii emotsional'nykh sostoyaniy budushchikh spetsialistov fizicheskoy kul'tury (Experimental substantiation of efficiency of methods of reflection of emotional states by future physical education specialists) / N.N. Romanova // Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury. – 2010. – № 1. – P. 13-15.
4. Sukhomlinskiy V.A. Metodika vospitaniya kollektiva (Staff training technique) / V.A. Sukhomlinskiy. – Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1981. – 192 p.

Corresponding author: romanova-natasha@mail.ru

Abstract

Objective of this article was to study the role of humour in the educational process of higher educational institution as a condition for development of reflective abilities of would-be physical education teachers. The paper states the importance of the studied characteristics and the need to control emotional reactions in physical education and sport activities. The efficiency of the special course "Psychoregulation" intended to disclose the resource potential and individual personality traits, to search prospects in dealing with negative emotions and feelings. The researchers analyzed the nature of humour, noted a close relationship of humour and human intellectual abilities. The main contingent was presented by 167 4th-year full-time students of Ural State University of Physical Culture, Chelyabinsk (Chelyabinsk) majoring in "Physical Education". The researchers summarized the student survey data, which confirm the need for humour in the educational process and its poor perception by university teachers as believed by students. In addition, the effectiveness of the experimental work carried out with the use of various forms of humour was described. The findings highlighted the importance of developing reflective abilities and the optimal dosage of humour in relation to educational information and proved efficiency of the author's technique.