Dr.Hab., Professor N.G. Milovanova¹
Master's student I.S. Milovanov^{1                                             
1}Tyumen State University, Tyumen

Keywords: communication skills, physical culture and sport activity, closed-type establishment, communicative skill components.

Background. Need for communication is one of the most critical in anybody’s life. Problems with concern to communication and interactions with the others are known to be particularly serious for adolescents who have committed offences and serve their sentences at a juvenile correction institution. Communication skills mean herein the personality qualities that cover different aspects of the adolescent inmates’ behavioural models including the social and mental adaptation levels; their motivations and their specifics; and their self-determination and self-assertion aspects.

Every juvenile correction institution gives a top priority to due conditons that need to be created to encourage the inmates’ intellectual, spiritual, ethical, mental and physical development viewed as an important component of their rehabilitation and social adaptation process which, in its turn, may be successful enough only when the new system of relationship is built up on a sound humanistic basis [3]. Good communication skills provide the means for effective interactions with other people in different activities. Presently, however, the growing social need for communicative people comes in conflict with the traditional cultural methods and forms applied by the today’s national penitentiary system that largely fail to build up decent communication skills in the inmates.

Objective of the study was to provide substantiation for the potential benefits of physical training and sporting practices to support the communication skills building process in application to inmates of the closed-type establishments based on the inmates’ communication problems monitoring and testing activity.

Methods and structure of the study. Subject to the study were 56 adolescent inmates of a juvenile correction institution aged 15-18 years. Reference Group and Study Group for the study were composed with account of the class limitations so that the Study Group was composed of 10-class inmates (n=18) and the Reference Group of the 8-9- and 11-12-class inmates. The Fisher method was used to check significance of the study data.

We have identified the following potential benefits of the physical training and sporting practices for the communication skills building initiatives: they build up ethical attitudes and sporting culture; cultivate fair-play attitudes; develop willpower; increase motivations for physical training and sporting practices and sport competitions; develop conflict-settlement, team spirit and mutual support qualities and skills; foster reflexion i.e. the ability to express own emotions by due wording and come up with one's own opinion in public; cultivate tolerance i.e. the ability to offer own comments and proposals using Self-expressing and Self-messaging techniques [1, 2].

In addition, to identify the most appropriate methods to improve the communication skills in the inmates we made due allowance for the key factors of the physical training and sporting practices including: (a) roles of the players; (b) actions to practice the roles; (c) game applications of different things, i.e. substitutes of the real things by play/ conditional ones; (d) real interpersonal relations of the players; (c) contents i.e. the area of reality conditionally replicated/ modelled by the game; and the specific values of the physical training and sporting practices for senior adolescents as means of self-assertion in the eyes of community with possible focus on humour, practical jokes, verbal interactions etc. [5, 6].

At the skills forming stage, we implemented the communication and interaction process in the physical training and sporting practices by special practical tools we designed to help the subjects construct the verbal interactions in the class and off-class physical training and sporting practices, as provided by the Physical Training and Sport “Step Forward Program”. The Program design may be outlined as follows: the inmate is expected to score for some period (e.g. quarter) certain rating points that determine his/her rank in the physical training and sporting practices. The skills rating concept really helps motivate the trainees by giving them a clear idea of the requirements and individual progress. Based on a set of the applied communication skills rating criteria, the trainees may objectively rate own progress. We believe that cultivating the self-assessment and mutual-assessment ability in the inmates is highly important as it helps make them fit for self-reliant life after the service [3, 4]. 

Study results and discussion. Having compared the study data obtained using different methods, we generated frame profiles of the inmates with the personality traits and communication skills rating data. At the study data interpretation stage, we considered it beneficial to apply combinations of different characteristics to construct the symptom groups featuring the communication, emotional and regulatory personality qualities and traits, with both the polar and average values of the factors being taken into account. Selected for the study were the combinations indicative of the individual abilities and qualities of the Study Group subjects. The study data were analyzed based on the Cattell’s 16 Personality Factors Test; and the resultant data were indicative of 68% of the inmates being preserved in their interpersonal contacts, having difficulties in socializing process and inclined to introversion; 84% of the subjects were diagnosed with some mildness of character and inclination towards opposition to the social group; 77% were tested with low thinking quality rates and poor general culture; and only 23% were tested with basically adequate self-assessment abilities.

Based on the above Cattell's  16 Personality Factors Test rates, we conducted an additional Personality Analysis and Self-Analysis that made it possible to test the ethical and labour qualities of the inmates, including: ethical position defending activity; teamwork ability; civil focus in labour; diligence level; creativity; and volitional qualities. The analysis showed the lowest progress rates in the teamwork ability that may be interpreted as indicative of the difficulties in social contacts; low responsibility for teamwork; and underdeveloped support-giving ability.

Having acquired frame understanding of the individual self-awareness level (Self-concept) of every inmate, we produced general characteristic of each personality and identified the internal prohibitions and complexes of the inmates and their difficulties in different aspects including: self-knowledge with awareness of the weak and strong traits of own personality; activity, optimism, determination in the goals attaining process; focus on top objectives, values and senses of being; belief in the supreme human ideals; and striving for self-improvement. The aggregate test rates of such personality qualities as the ethical position defending activity, teamwork ability, civil focus in labour, diligence, creativity and volitional qualities gave us the grounds to conclude that 18%, 30% and 53% of the inmates showed high, average and low development rates of these qualities, respectively.

Having studied the psychological climate at physical education lessons, we found no one inmate unhappy with the psychological climate or rating it very negatively. The survey showed 65% of the inmates rating the psychological climate as comfortable and saying they like the people they learn with; 35% of the inmates were found indifferent to the psychological climate at the lessons and probably preferring another group more valuable for them in communication aspect.

Having tested the subjects by the Communication and Management Ability Test (CMA-2) method, we identified the inmates with the harmonically developed management and communication abilities and skills. We considered it beneficial to use the test data to identify the inmates having the leadership qualities that may be later on involved in the Step Forward Program implementation process. The unification rates of the inmates were found fairly high both in the Study Group and Reference Group. We identified the most sporting and knowledgeable leaders among the inmates via the following questions: “Who in your class is the most painstaking at physical education lessons?” “Whom would you elect a team captain?” “Who in your class is highly knowledgeable in sports beyond the education course?” The leaders were nominated for potential engagement in the Program implementation process, to assist in the physical culture and sport events and make public reports.

Furthermore, we nominated the communication process leaders by such criteria as “emotional” and “businesslike” (supporting inmates). Special attention in the study was given to the question “Who, in your opinion, is the best in explaining and showing how to do an exercise and/or rules of the game?” The identified leaders were nominated for potential engagement in the physical culture and sport events organizing efforts. The inmates who received the lowest scores in the questioning survey were offered play roles in training sessions to improve their statuses in the group.

To double check the accuracy of the questioning survey results obtained, we qualified the leaders as “sporting”, “sport master”, “businesslike” and “team captain” versus the education standards referring to the skills, abilities, physical quality development rates in the Study Group subjects.

We should note the increased activity of the Study Group inmates to engage their peers in the physical training and sport practices and events. The Study Group inmates in fact engaged the Reference Group in the sport events organizing activity and offered them a variety of roles in the process including slogans verbalizing, motto inventing and event managing activities. As demonstrated by the progress monitoring data, the inmates became more active in taking the initiative in team competitions and offering the supervisors to organize some sport event – mostly an indoor football match.

Furthermore, 59% of the inmates were found not always confident in success of their efforts – mostly due to the negative personal experience prior to the sentence (the status being qualified as “habitual helplessness”), albeit the inmates of the correction institution on the whole showed a notable progress as verified by the Step Forward Program benefits.

The initiative result analysis using a cascade methodology generated the following rating of the education subjects: (1) Physical Education; (2) Information Science; (3) Biology; and (4) History.

Conclusion. The inmates were found to show on the whole very responsible attitudes to the physical culture and sporting activity being highly demanding to themselves and striving to fulfil every task in the best possible way. The natural aspirations of free adolescents versus the adolescent inmates of the correction institution were found different in their psychological basics.

In the joint physical training and sporting activities, the adolescents learned to form a sport/ game team, comply with certain rules of the game and find the best ways to cope with a variety of challenging motor situations. The personality development potential of the physical training and sporting practices implies the need for agreed actions with the teammates with the ability to make concessions to and hear one another, support or save the teammate, rate own desires second to the valid rules, including the fair-play rules; and all that helped the inmates cultivate the new values and behavioural standards. The study has found notable benefits of the applied physical training and sporting practices as verified by every communication skill rating criterion.

References

1. Zagvyazinskiy V.I. Obshchaya panorama pedagogicheskogo issledovaniya po problemam fizicheskoy kul'tury i sporta (Pedagogical research in physical education and sport: Overview) / V.I. Zagvyazinskiy, I.V. Manzheley // Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury. – 2016. – # 3. – P. 3–5.
2. Manzheley I.V. Konstruktivnoe vzaimodeystvie v fizkul'turnom obrazovanii (Constructive interaction in physical education) / I.V. Manzheley // Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury. – 2004. – # 12. – P. 24-30.
3. Milovanova N.G. Vozmozhnosti fizkul'turno-sportivnoy deyatel'nosti po formirovaniyu kommunikativnykh umeniy vospitannikov uchrezhdeniy zakrytogo tipa (Possibilities of communicative skills building sports activities for students of closed type establishments) / N.G. Milovanova // Problemy pedagogicheskoy innovatiki v professional'nom obrazovanii (Problems of pedagogical innovation in vocational training): Proc. of the 17 Intern. res.-pract. conf. – St. Petersburg: Express, 2016. – 422 p. – P. 259–264.
4. Milovanova N.G. Metodologicheskie osnovy podgotovki pedagogov k rabote s dezadaptirovannymi det'mi (Methodological basics of teacher training to work with maladjusted children) / N.G. Milovanova // Voprosy metodologii v pedagogike i pedagogicheskom obrazovanii (Matters of methodology in pedagogics and teacher education): Col. scient. articles. – St. Petersburg – Tyumen: TRSIDRE RAE, 2011. – P. 70-73.
5. Osipova A.A. Osobennosti vzaimootnosheniy raznourovnevykh svoystv individual'nosti v rannem yunosheskom vozraste: avtoref. … dis. kand. ped. nauk (Features of relations of multi-level personality traits in early adolescence: Abstract of PhD thesis). – Rostov-on-Don, 2001. – 103 p.
6. Popov A.L. Sportivnaya psikhologiya (Sport Psychology): study guide for phys. cult. universities). – Sfera, 1999. – 112 p.

Corresponding author: natamil2004@mail.ru

Abstract

The article reports results of an experimental project to test the ways to cultivate communicative skills in the inmates of closed-type establishments by a variety of physical education and sport methods. Subject to the study were 56 inmates of a corrective colony aged 15-18 years. The Study Group under the project was composed of the 10-graders (18 people) and Reference Group of the 8-9- and 11-12-grade pupils. The study data and analysis gave the means to outline the potential ways of physical education and sports being applied to cultivate communicative abilities in the inmates. The article describes the diagnostic toolkits applied at different stages of the project to identify problems coming up in the communicative skills building process. The study findings were used to offer promising practical models to cultivate the communicative skills in the inmates of closed-type establishments by the relevant physical education and sport methods.