Applicant E.M. Safiulin
Dr.Hab., Professor A.S. Makhov
Associate Professor, PhD I.V. Mikhaylova
Russian State Social University

Keywords: chess, musculoskeletal disorder (MSD), development problems, restraining factors, distance training, chess player with MSD, adaptive sport

Introduction

Adaptive elite chess sport is underpinned by the children-and-youth sport system and this is the main reason why it is so important to explore, on a sound research basis, the early stage of chess training of players with MSD. It should be mentioned, however, that efforts to integrate people suffering from MSD in the early stage of the chess education and training environment is complicated by a variety of factors and reasons of different degrees and effects [1].

The objective of the study was to explore the objective and subjective factors restraining the process of knowledge and skills of the chess players with MSD being formed and improved in the primary chess training stage. Missions of the study were to detect the restraining factors faced by the beginner chess players with MSD and the most serious challenges on their way to success, and to offer the most promising ways to remove these barriers in the early chess training stage of chess players with MSD.

Materials and methods

The set of objective and subjective factors restraining the process of the knowledge and skills of chess players with MSD being formed and improved in the primary chess training stage was determined through interviews and opinion polls of active athletes and coaches from the “Penguin” Club of impaired people under the Ivanov State University Shuya Affiliate; the “Nadezhda” Club of players with musculoskeletal disorders based in Ivanovo town; “Volya” Sport Club of people with impairments based in Ivanovo town; and the “Volga” Sport Club of impaired people based in Puchezh town. The study was timed to the X Sport Festival of People with Musculoskeletal Disorders of the Ivanov Province in memory of A.P. Grishin, Ivanov State University Shuya Affiliate Vice-Principal.

Given in the left column of Table 1 hereunder is the list of objective and subjective restraining factors (challenges and problems) as provided by the interviews and opinion polls under the study. To tackle the second mission of the study, we developed a questionnaire form where we asked the respondents to rate the perceived importance/ priority of these factors by points on a 10-point scale, with 1 point being a minimum and 10 points – maximum rate. Furthermore, depending on the degree of importance of the challenges as rated by the points, the responses were categorized into the following groups: “top priority” rated by 9-10 points; “priority” rated by 7-8 points; “not sure” rated by 5-6 points; “no priority” rated by 3-4 points; and “absolute non-priority” rated by 1-2 points. The questioning was performed in the period of the 2015 Para-Crimea Russian Festival of Sports for People with MSD in September 2015.

Subjects of the study were the athletes and coaches of the teams qualified for the above Festival coming from 41 regions and cities of the Russian Federation, namely: Moscow and Saint Petersburg cities; the Moscow, Omsk, Tomsk, Saratov, Kaluga, Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, Ivanovo, Sverdlovsk, Samara, Arkhangelsk, Kurgan, Vologda, Irkutsk, Tyumen, Smolensk, Ryazan, Voronezh, Pskov, Ulyanovsk, Tula, Kemerovo and Nizhny Novgorod Provinces; the Republics of Tatarstan, Khakassia, Dagestan, Chechnya, Altay, Crimea, Udmurtia, Buryatia, Chuvashia and Bashkortostan; and the Krasnodar, Perm, Khabarovsk, Primorye and Stavropol Territories. 98 people were surveyed. The survey data were processed using the regular statistical method of averages.

Table 1. Main challenges and problems rating analysis based on the mathematically and statistically processed survey data of the beginner chess players with MSD in the primary chess training stage

Results and discussion

As demonstrated by the above Table 1, neither of the challengers and problems reported by the beginner chess players with MSD was rated as “no priority” (3-4 points) or “absolute non-priority” (1-2 points). In view of the wide geographical scope of the study covering as many as 41 regions of the RF, we have good reasons to state that every respondent reports much the same organizational problems of adaptive chess sport regardless of the location. Furthermore, despite the fact that challenges 13 and 14 were reported as the least important and formally fall within the not sure category, the Мо and Ме are 9 and 8 points, respectively, and this is indicative of most of the rates being above the arithmetic mean value and, hence, these groups may be indirectly referred to the priority group. Challenge 12 with its arithmetic mean value of () = 6.95 is also fairly close to the priority group. High similarity of responses rating this challenge group is confirmed the relevant variation factor (V=15%). Challenges 2 to 11 were rated with the priority category (of 7-8 points). Average rate () of the responses was estimated to equal 7.35±0.236 for the “Lack of computers and multimedia, including the Internet service cost and chess play website service cost coverage for the chess training process and adaptive chess competitions in the lists of rehabilitation equipment/ service for the trainees with MSD”; and up to 8.79±0.199 for the “Lack of special chess training methods tailored to players' individual health limitations”. Challenge factors 3, 6, 8 and 10 show negative excess rates (Ех) and asymmetry rates (Аs) indicative of many factors being in excess of the arithmetic mean value (). These data are virtually fully substantiated by the median rate (Ме) and mode rate (Мо). Challenges 4, 7 and 9 are rated with positive excess rates (Ех) and negative asymmetry rates (Аs). Variability rates (V) of these challenges vary within the range of 11% to 16%, whilst the median rate (Ме) and mode rate (Мо) are virtually the same as the arithmetic mean value (). These data are characteristic of the fact that these challenges were rated almost the same by the chess players with MSD polled regardless of their regions of residence. Special attention, in our opinion, should be given to the following positions: “Lack of instruction guides tailored to the health limitations of the trainees” and “Lack of information on the remote chess mastering opportunities for the people with MSD on global Internet websites”. We believe that these problems are the most serious ones for the primary training stage of the chess player formation process. They need to be duly addressed, all the more that focus research teams from Russian State Social University report positive experience of the chess training project tailored to different health limitations being successfully implemented in practice [2 - 4].

Indirect albeit positive indication of such chess training project design tailored to different health limitations being quite promising in the early stage of chess player formation process – is provided by the rates for the “Lack of transportation service” challenge group (the only one of the reported challenges), with its arithmetic mean value of () = 9.12±0.265. The transportation demands of the people with MSD in need of sport training have quite often been reported and explored by the adaptive sport analysts, and this study only provides additional evidence of how serious this problem is [5].

Conclusion

The study gives reasons to confirm that adaptive chess sport is getting more and more popular among the people with MSD and shows notable progress across many regions of the RF; but the chess sport organization in application to the beginner chess players with MSD in the primary chess mastering stage was found still not free of the following main challenges and problems:

• Due transportation service is needed to help the people with MSD willing to play chess reach the relevant sport facilities and infrastructure;
• Short supply of the chess coaches trained to design the chess education and training process tailored to the health limitations of the beginner chess players with MSD;
• Short supply of the research and methodological literature on the subject; and the need for experimentally grounded equipment, tools, methods and consistent guidelines for the impaired chess players’ training process;
• Need for information on the local chess groups, sections and clubs connected to the relevant social protection services and the municipal/ regional sport committees.

To introduce more and more people with MSD into the primary chess mastering process in the present social and economic situation of our society, with an emphasis on the efficiency improvement of the primary chess mastering system in application to the beginner groups of players with MSD, due actions must be taken to: (a) clearly and purposefully  promote the adaptive chess game development agenda and its health benefits through the national and local mass media organizations; (b) put together and improve a science-based education system to train chess coaches and masters of this sport discipline; and (c) support the primary chess mastering process of the players with MSD by modern remote training tools with due employment of the relevant modern chess mastering websites like ICC, Play Chess and Chess Planet.

References

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5. Makhov A.S., Stepanova O.N., Shmeleva S.V., Petrova E.A., Dubrovinskaya E.I. (2015) Planning and Organization of Sports Competitions for Disabled People: Russian Experience. Biosciences biotechnology research Asia (Vol. 12(1) pp. 34-44).