PhD, Associate Professor S.V. Goncharuk¹
PhD, Associate Professor I.N. Nikulin¹
PhD, Associate Professor V.A Streltsov¹
Postgraduate Y.A. Goncharuk^1
1Belgorod State National Research University, Belgorod

Keywords: physical education, elective disciplines, education process, curriculum, sporting/ health activity selection.

Background. The ongoing socio-cultural framework democratisation process implies the young people giving an increasingly high priority to the new physical education models, tools and methods catering for modern lifestyles, mentalities and other socio-psychological factors, with a special emphasis on the initiatives to implement modern personified educational technologies in the traditional physical education systems. A variety of study reports note that it is the conflict of the traditional academic Physical Education curriculum and the real needs and expectations of the students that seem to give rise to the intrinsic tensions in the modern national physical education system [1, 2, 3, 6]. 

The growing gap between the traditional design and content of the academic physical education curriculum and modern demands is further confirmed by the questionnaire survey of the Belgorod State National Research University (BSNRU) students (n = 3500+). The survey data profiling the students’ attitudes to Physical Education lessons were alarming in the sense that only 30% of the respondents reported a high interest in the Physical Education discipline versus the other 70% who rated their own interests as average and low. Moreover, 80% of the respondents confessed that they would never attend the academic Physical Education classes if they were not obligatory. In the responses to the question on the individual goals of the physical education process, 65% opted for the “scoring credits” version; albeit more than a half of the students still reported interest in the elected academic sports [5].

The above and other data are indicative of the growing gap between the students’ demands for specific physical education models, types and tools catering for their individual capacities, agendas and abilities – and the still underdeveloped educational framework for the modern tools and models being implemented in the traditional academic Physical Education curriculum.

Objective of the study was to find the most efficient academic Physical Education process model (design and content) for the elective academic sports and physical education and health improvement curricula.

Methods and structure of the study. As provided by the relevant Federal State Higher Educational Standards (FSHES) applicable to every training course, the academic Physical Education base course takes at least 72 academic hours plus at least 328 academic hours for elective sport disciplines. The base course of the academic Physical Education discipline and the elective sport disciplines are run together starting from the first academic year.

The base course of the academic Physical Education discipline at BSNRU is designed to include lectures and practical training sessions, with the theoretical sub-course giving a top priority to the axiological orientations of the students in the physical education domain. The practical sessions offer a few applied sports including track and field athletics, swimming and team sports dominated by volleyball and basketball. Contents of the courses are largely propaedeutic [introductory] i.e. designed to familiarise the trainees with the modern physical education basics. It should be emphasised that the courses consider the technical skills training and specific qualifications as a secondary result of the process and rather give a top priority to the general physical education missions of the process including due motivations being build up based on the axiological orientations of the students in the physical education domain; with the education process being dominated by a dialogue, cooperative search and due interactions [7, 8, 9].

Contents of the academic elective disciplines are driven by the idea of the individual mental and physical potential of each student being mobilised for the elected physical education process. The elective disciplines are geared to meet the physical training and sporting needs of the students as fully as possible and include the following three modules: sporting; health recreation; and rehabilitation ones [5].

The sporting module offers a wide variety of elective sports traditionally popular in the academic communities including volleyball, basketball, futsal, table tennis, strength (weightlifting) sports, swimming, martial arts, shooting, and the GTO Complex all-round sports. The academic sport groups are largely composed of the students having practical experiences and accomplishments in specific sports and willing to excel in them by training and competing. The academic sessions are basically designed for the competitive training purposes and scheduled in the p.m. hours. The training systems give a high priority to the game and competitive process designs to facilitate the students’ progress in the vocational sports with an eye to their potential promotion to the sport reserves of the picked university teams. The sports groups are normally coached by the academic staff members prone to the coaching/ instruction activity and having high technical competency in the relevant sports [5].

The health recreation module includes a variety of special physical activities including bodybuilding, classical aerobics with its modern versions, therapeutic swimming, corrective gymnastics, tourism, table tennis and track and field athletics. The students’ motivations in opting for one or another of these sports are basically driven by the practical goals like weight loss, workability/ health improvement, body shaping, willpower building etc. The sessions are scheduled both in the class and off-class hours for convenience of both the far-living students and those who live in the nearest academic hostels. In the relevant coaching staff recruitment, the highest preference is given to the academic staff members highly competent and experienced in the individualised sport-specific training systems and technologies [5].

The rehabilitation module is designed for the special health group students and includes the following courses: therapeutic swimming for the students diagnosed with spinal and musculoskeletal system  disorders; Pilates program with its body shaping and muscular corset correcting missions; healthy walking and jogging program for the students diagnosed with cardiovascular system disorders; and the corrective gymnastics program to prevent and correct postural disorders and peripheral/ central nervous system malfunctions. The list of the courses/ programs under this module is customised to the most typical health disorders diagnosed in the BSNRU students, with the training process being managed by the highly skilled educators certified with the relevant advanced education certificates.

The students formally exempted from Physical Education lessons may still opt for training in special health groups, with their choices and decisions being facilitated by the individual consulting service [5, 9].

Study results and discussion. The wide choice of the elective disciplines catering for a variety of social, demographical, psychosomatic, motivational aspects and specific demands/ agendas of the students plus the efficient management of the available material and human resource of the university made it possible to build up the academic physical education model customizable for a wide variety of physical training and sporting needs of the students. As a result, the numbers of students engaged in the academic physical education and sports have grown significantly for one year: see Figure 1.

Figure 1. Annual growth in the numbers of students engaged in the academic physical education and sports

The highest growth in the numbers was noted in the swimming and body-building disciplines that might be due to the high versatility of the training courses offered under these disciplines.

It should also be mentioned that the compliance of the valid hygienic standards in the physical training courses has increased as verified by the numbers of the standards-meeting students. Furthermore, in the academic year of 2014-15, only 16.5% of the students were reportedly trained for six-plus-hours per week versus 55.0% in the academic year of 2015-16. This is a striking growth of more than three times: see Figure 2.

Figure 2. Weekly physical training time reported by the students, in % to the total polled student population

The most important indicators of the academic physical education process quality in terms of its design and content are the following: the students’ satisfaction with the sessions and their participation rates in the physical culture and sport events. The survey data shows the students’ satisfaction with the training sessions marking a 20.3% rise in the academic year of 2015-16 versus 2014-15; with the numbers of students involved in the physical culture and sport events reported to grow by 10.6 %.

To rate the students’ progress, we piloted a Progress Rating System (PRS) making a special emphasis on the students’ diverse physical culture and sporting activities being scored as accurately as possible. As provided by the PRS, the rating scores may be obtained not only for attending lectures, practical training sessions and progress tests, but also for some other activities (including sport competitions scored depending on their ranks; refereeing services; sport qualifications and/or titles; progress test rates in the body conditioning (BC) course; GTO Complex test rates; off-class sport club activity beyond the university; contributions to academic research conferences on physical culture topics; and progress rates in theoretical knowledge tests). It is important that the PRS rates the progress using a set of performance criteria customizable to academic health groups. Practical experience of the model piloting experiment showed that the PRS enables the students to score credits by prudently designing and controlling their own physical culture and sporting activity.

Conclusion. The new educational model was rated highly promising and beneficial as verified by the test data and the following new institutional and educational conditions and opportunities:

- Wide choice of physical education models, types and tools customisable to individual educational, professional, socialising needs and personal agendas of the students;

- The education process model is designed to support the individual progress of each student by offering facilitating conditions for creative self-expression;

- The education process model gives a high priority to dialogues, joint search and cooperation; 

- The education process goals are differentiated to cater for the individual interests, abilities and physical education experiences of the trainees;

- The education process model is designed to stimulate self-reliant physical practices; and

- The education process model is supported by the Progress Rating System (PRS) designed to score the students’ diverse physical culture and sporting activity as accurately as possible.

References

1. Alekseev S.V., Gostev R.G., Kuramshin Y.F. Fizicheskaya kultura i sport v Rossiyskoy Federatsii: novye vyzovy sovremennosti [Physical Culture and Sport in the Russian Federation: New Challenges of the Present]. Moscow: Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury i sporta publ., 2013, 780 p.
2. Bal'sevich V.K. Zdoroveformiruyushchaya funktsiya obrazovaniya v Rossiyskoy Federatsii [Materialy k razrabotke natsionalnogo proekta ozdorovleniya podrastayushchego pokoleniya Rossii v period 2006-2026 gg.] [Health promoting function of education in the Russian Federation [Materials for development of national project for health improvement of younger generation of Russia for 2006-2026]. Fizicheskaya kultura: vospitanie, obrazovanie, trenirovka, 2006, no. 5, pp. 2-6.
3. Zdorove natsii – osnova protsvetaniya Rossii. Materialy X Vserossiyskogo foruma. Obshcherossiyskaya obshchestvennaya organizatsiya «LIGA ZDOROVYA NATSII» [National health - the basis of Russia's prosperity. Proc. X All-Rus. Forum. All-Rus. public organization "LIGA ZDOROVYA NATSII"], Moscow, 2016, 489 p.
4. Nikulin I.N., Goncharuk Y.A. K voprosu o sovershenstvovanii obrazovatelnogo protsessa po fizicheskoy kulture [Issues of improvement of physical education process]. Mater. Vseros. nauch.-metod. konf. "Aktualnye problemy fizicheskogo vospitaniya i sporta v vuze" [Proc. Rus. res.-method. conf. "Actual problems of university physical education and sports"]. Moscow: Gubkin RSU Oil and Gas publ., Moscow, 2017, pp. 19-22.
5. Nikulin I.N., Streltsov V.A., Goncharuk S.V. Modernizatsiya sistemy fizicheskogo vospitaniya studentov NIU BelGU na osnove differentsiatsii soderzhaniya fizkulturno-sportivnoy deyatelnosti [Modernization of BSNRU physical education system via differentiation of physical culture and sports activities]. Mater. zaochnoy n/p konf. s mezhdunar. uchastiem, posvyaschennoy 60-letiyu obrazovaniya Belgorodskoy oblasti "Sovremennoe sostoyanie i tendentsii razvitiya fizicheskoy kultury i sporta" [Proc. res.-pract. teleconf. with intern. participation, dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Belgorod region "Current state and development trends of physical culture and sports"]. Belgorod, 2014, pp. 10-15.
6. Osokina E.S., Le-van T.N., Zudin A.B., Aksenova E.I., Gotskaya A.I., Degtyareva T.O. Rezultaty Vserossiyskogo sotsiologicheskogo issledovaniya vovlechennosti obuchayushchikhsya v zanyatiya po predmetu (distsipline) «Fizicheskaya kultura». Informatsionno analiticheskie materialy [Results of national sociological study of involvement of students in Physical Education (discipline) classes". Information Analytical Materials], St. Petersburg: ART publ., 2016, 342 p.
7. Streltsov V.A. Formirovanie tsennostno-smyslovogo otnosheniya studentov k fizicheskoy kulture [Formation of students' axiological attitude to physical education]. Mater. XV Yubileynoy Vseros. s mezhdunar. uchast. nauch. konf. "Sovershenstvovanie sistemy fizicheskogo vospitaniya, sportivnoy trenirovki, turizma i ozdorovleniya razlichnykh kategoriy naseleniya" [Proc. ХV Jubilee All-Rus. Sci. Conf. with intern. particip. "Improvement of system of physical education, sports training, tourism and health improvement of various categories of population"]. Surgut: SSU publ., 2016, vol. 1, pp. 103-109.

Corresponding author: sobyanin@bsu.edu.ru

Abstract

Objective of the study was to find the most efficient academic physical education process model (design and content) for elective academic sports and physical education curricula.

The study addressed a wide variety of elective disciplines customizable to social, demographic and psychosomatic qualities, motivations and needs of the students. We made an attempt to employ the available human and physical resource of the university on a more efficient basis to considerably improve its capacities to meet the critical sporting and physical educational needs of the students. The new model helped engage much more students in the academic physical education process.

To rate the students’ progress, we piloted a Progress Rating System (PRS) making a special emphasis on the students’ diverse sporting and physical culture activities being scored as accurately as possible. As provided by the PRS, the rating scores may be obtained not only for attending lectures, practical training sessions and progress tests, but also for some other activities. It is important that the PRS rates the progress using a set of performance criteria customizable to the academic health groups. Practical experience of the model piloting experiment showed that the PRS enables the students to score credits by prudently designing and controlling their own physical culture and sporting activity.