Dr.Ss.Phil., Professor E.Y. Novikova¹
PhD, Associate Professor Е.V. Malakhova¹
PhD, Associate Professor А.V. Galukhin¹
P.A. Kostin^1
1Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Moscow

Keywords: values, physical culture, profession, lifestyle, students.

Background. Physical culture values comprise an important component of personal culture including its professional development system. An analysis of the physical culture related values in students of the university of economics gives efficient tools to improve the academic physical education methods and content of the curricula to have them customised to the individualised educational trajectories and individual professional progress lines.

Objective of the study was to analyse the students’ values-driven attitudes to the academic physical education process versus the existing behavioural models determined by professional growth and career expectations.

Methods and structure of the study. We designed the physical culture values study methodology based on the following provisions: (1) physical culture related values comprising a core component of a healthy lifestyle; (2) physical culture considered in the context of the physical fitness standards dictated by the professional responsibilities; (3) physical culture values partially determined by an individual habitus (i.e. behavioural predispositions); (4) individual attitudes to physical culture largely formatted by the expected career progress lines; (5) physical culture values that may be considered in the context of professional communications; and (6) physical culture values generally accepted by the dominant public consciousness and young people’s subcultures, and this fact needs to be taken into account in the education process design [1, 3, 4].

The study was performed at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics to obtain data on the students’ values-driven attitudes to the academic physical education in the context of the existing professional development values and career expectations. Specific values under the study were rated on a 100% scale. Subject to the study were 200 Master's course students (12%) of 24-35 years of age, including 90 men and 110 women. We applied a questionnaire survey and analyses of the students’ test works and essays under the special academic Professional Personality Development course.

Study results and discussion. Virtually every subject (98.7%) was found to associate – on the level of professional knowledge component of the professional competences – the physical culture values with a healthy lifestyle. However, an analysis of the elementary values of the individual behavioural models showed that the students’ guiding attitudes to physical culture are formed in the context of their professional growth strategies with the healthy lifestyle centred culture being viewed as secondary in fact (by 41.7%). We used the study data and analyses to classify the guiding values into the following four basic types of attitudes to physical culture versus the professional personality development agenda and career expectations.

The first-type attitudes were driven by the values considering physical culture as a component of a healthy lifestyle and a progress driver in any kind of professional career, with the attitudes largely formed by a systemic sporting activity in pre-university period (73.7%). These values are closely associated with the individual professional progress strategies with the healthy lifestyle centred culture being generally recognised. Subjects qualified with this group were found determined for success in their professional careers.

The second-type attitudes consider physical culture a dominant component in the professional image building aspect (72.8%). The values-driven attitudes in this case were found gender-specific, the finding being supported by some other researchers [6, 7]. These values are generally determined by high life and career expectations, with the subjects focused on high social and professional goals and fast progress along the vertical promotion lines offered by the large-scale and highly reputable domestic and foreign companies.

The third-type values-driven attitudes consider physical culture a communication component in the professional recreation domain (68.2%), with the socialising space offered by the corporate sporting services (fitness centres, sport clubs, sport groups etc.) viewed as an important communication environment for professionally valuable connections being established.

And the fourth-type values-driven attitudes consider physical culture a basis for professionally important physical qualities and skills including, among other things, attention focusing skills, endurance, vitality etc. (69.4%).

Furthermore, the study has found a few contradictions in the guiding values and attitudes of the students. Despite the objective needs for health improvement (due to professional fatigue, stresses etc.), the respondents were found to still underestimate the recreational physical culture that may be interpreted as a combination of training and health improvement systems for mental and emotional rehabilitation [2]. As a result, both the motivational and cognitive components of the recreational physical culture were found underdeveloped and, hence, hampering the students’ progress in understanding and accepting the modern sporting forms and methods with their physical training and health improvement potentials. The students were found to underestimate, among other things, the potential of modern adaptive fitness highly appreciated by many analysts [5].

Conclusion. Efforts to develop due educational content and the institutional, methodological and procedural provisions for the healthy lifestyle driven culture advancement in the academic communities is to be designed to facilitate their engagement in other cultures and subcultures including professional ones – for the reason that labour and career are highly important for everybody.

Analyses of the academic physical education versus the professionally important values give the means to apply the relevant correctional, health improvement, cultural and preventive tools of the academic physical education for efficient professional development – to purposefully shape up due competences in the students as required by the market situation and their reasonable professional agendas and career expectations. Modern health-improvement fitness technologies are to be wider applied in the initiatives to build up the professionally important qualities and skills and to promote corporate sport events and corporate sport clubs as the health-improvement system elements.

References

1. Dobrotvorskaya S.G. Organizatsionno-metodicheskie usloviya orientatsii studentov na zdorovy obraz zhizni [Procedural and methodological conditions for orientation of students to healthy lifestyle]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2016, no. 9, pp. 28-30.
2. Kondrakov G.B., Andryushchenko L.B., Yablochkina I.V., Podoruev Yu.V. Kontseptsiya formirovaniya rekreatsionnoy fizicheskoy kultury v ekonomicheskom vuze [Recreational physical culture formation concept for economic university]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2016, no. 9, pp. 22-24
3. Malakhova E.V. Molodezhnaya subkultura i sotsialnaya mifologiya [Youth subculture and social mythology]. Izvestiya MGTU MAMI, 2014, vol. 5, no. 4 (22), pp. 116-121.
4. Novikova E.Y. Professionalnoe razvitie lichnosti i obrazovanie [Personality professional development and education]. Pravo i obrazovanie, 2015, no. 9, pp. 40-49.
5. Firileva J.E. Kontseptsiya adaptivnogo fitnesa v sisteme ozdorovleniya cheloveka [Adaptive fitness concept in health improvement system]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2016, no. 8, pp. 30-31.
6. Khristolyubova A.A., Kadomtseva E.M., Ponomarev V.V. Sotsiologicheskiy analiz ponimaniya fenomena fizicheskoy podgotovlennosti i ego znachimosti v uchebnoy deyatelnosti studentok [Sociological analysis of interpretation of physical fitness phenomenon and its role in female students' studies]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2016, no. 7, p. 43.
7. Shutova T.N., Rybakova E.O., Sharav'eva A.V. Korrektsiya fizicheskogo sostoyaniya zhenshchin sredstvami akvafitnesa [Correction of women’s physical condition by means of aqua fitness]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2015, no. 1, pp. 55-57.

Corresponding author: Novikovaelena77@yandex.ru

Abstract

The study considers the values-driven attitudes to the academic physical education in the context of the existing system of professional values. The physical culture related values are studied in a variety of aspects including healthy lifestyles; physical activity; professional codes of conduct; professional habits; career paths; professional communications; societal consciousness; and young peoples’ subcultures. The study data and analyses made it possible to classify the guiding values and attitudes into the following four types. The first-type values consider physical culture as a component of a healthy lifestyle and a progress driver for any kind of professional career. The second-type values consider it dominating in the professional image building aspect. The third-type values consider physical culture a communication component in the professional recreation domain. And the fourth-type values consider it a basis for the professionally important physical qualities and skills. The study has found a contradiction in the guiding values due to the cognitive component of physical culture with the healthy lifestyle related aspect coming in conflict with the professional pragmatics. The study provides theoretical grounds for a wider application of health-improvement fitness technologies in the initiatives to build up the professionally important qualities and promote corporate sport events and corporate sport clubs as the health-improvement system elements.