Dr.Hab., Professor V.V. Bazelyuk¹
Associate Professor, PhD E.V. Romanov¹
Associate Professor, PhD A.V. Romanova^1
1 South Ural State University (National Research University), Institute for Open and Distance Education, Ozersk

Keywords: physical education, schoolchildren, conflict, factor analysis, constructive settlement of conflicts.

Background. Conflicts in the schoolchildren’s physical education process may be considered quite natural in the education system operations and development process. Conflicts are known to be caused by a variety of triggering factors. Factor analysis provides the necessary toolkit for comprehensive consideration of the conflict triggers in the schoolchildren’s physical education process and may be used as a gnoseological key for understanding true reasons for the conflicts and find the most efficient ways to prevent, mitigate and constructively settle them.

Objective of the study was to find and analyze the conflict triggers in the school physical education process based on a factor analysis.

Methods and structure of the study. The study was designed on an integrated theoretical analysis of the conflict triggers in the school physical education process supported by practical survey data. The practical stage of the study included questionnaire surveys and trigger classification based on response data and individual interviews of the physical education process participants including trainees, their families, physical education and sport specialists and conflict analysts.

Study results and discussion. The modern theory and practice of physical culture traditionally considers the conflict triggers only from the viewpoint of the interpersonal interactions of the physical education process participants never giving enough attention to the conflict provoking factors inside the physical education system as such. This is the reason why the efforts to prevent and constructively settle the conflicts when they come to direct interactions of the conflicting parties are not always successful due to many other factors that give implicit rise to these conflicts prior to their outbursts in the direct interactions.

We used a theoretical analysis of the available theoretical and practical literature and practical physical education experience to classify the key conflict triggering factors into social, psychological, physiological and educational ones, all of them being closely interrelated so that the factors may be considered as forming a closed circle. This is the reason why considering an isolated conflict triggering factor gives virtually no chance to obtain an inclusive insight to the problem and necessarily involves some other factor(s) into the analysis. 

The social (social/ economic) factor implies the conflict triggers in the school physical education process that are due to or connected with the low efficiency or shortage of the initiatives in the Russian society to step up the social role of the national physical culture and sports.

The psychological (psycho-physiological) factor refers to the conflict triggers in the school physical education process that are due to or connected with the inadequate attention given to the psychological component of the schoolchildren’s motor development management process customized to the trainees’ individual traits and their nervous and mental developmental specifics.

The physiological (patho-physiological) factor refers to the conflict triggers in the school physical education process that are due to or connected with the physical education process as such that is often loosely customized to the actual underage body adaptation process under physical loads and/or based on poor knowledge of the actual physical abilities of the trainees and, in some cases, their patho-physiological disorders/ diseases.

The educational factor implies the conflict triggers in the school physical education process that are due to or connected with the content and design (i.e. the program and methodological aspects) of the process.

Our analysis of each of the above factors gave the means to identify the potential conflict triggers n the context of the problem under consideration. The social (social/ economic) conflict triggering factors may include: changes in the living/ education/ work/ rest conditions; shortage of motor activity (hypokinesia); non-acceptance of a healthy lifestyle as the habitual behavioural model; negative trends in the local youth subculture; deviations in the hygienic regime; negligence to the senior people’s experience and accomplishments in the physical education process; inadequate contribution of the local authorities to the mass school (children’s and youth) sports and/or shortage of focused financing for the initiatives if any; low efficiency of the school physical education process management by the regional and municipal authorities; increasingly acute shortage of the manmade and natural sport facilities and sites for the local physical culture, sport and tourist activities of the young people; reluctance of the families that need to make more active contribution to the efforts to cultivate habitual physical culture in schoolchildren based on regular physical exercises (due to the passive recreation/ pastime forms being presently dominant in many families); low social status of physical education teacher/ physical education instructor/ teacher/ coach/ advanced education specialist at preschool/ school education stages; and the low efficiency of the existing personnel training and social support system for the physical education/ sports/ tourism service personnel in the country.

The psychological (psycho-physiological conflict triggering factors may include the following: increased intellectual and psychological loads associated with stresses and neurotic responses in the school children; sagging interest to, motivations and need for regular physical practices of the young generation; shortage of the practical initiatives to implement the modern psychological concepts of schoolchildren’s physical development into practice; growing spiritual impoverishment of the national physical culture (manifested, among other things, by the lack of “integrity of the physical and psychical development process” as provided by P.F. Lesgaft); insufficient emphasis on the psychological component of the general motor skills development process (including the motor skills self-control and self-management process; arbitrariness of the physical development process; customized sensitivity to the key performance parameters); poorly customization of the process to the age- and gender-specifics and individual developmental traits of the schoolchildren in the physical culture, sporting and tourist processes; and the insufficient attention to the emotional, volitional and intellectual personality development initiatives in the young people’s physical education process.

The physiological (patho-physiological) conflict triggering factors may be listed as follows: sagging physical developmental indices of the young generation; growing hypertension and allergic diseases in the schoolchildren’s population; poor customizing of the training process to the body adaptive capabilities in the physical education system, i.e. due account need to be made of the muscular system developmental/ performance rates and correlations of the muscular actions with the responses of internal organs; miscalculations in assessments of the actual children’s physical abilities and functionalities by the relevant physical culture and sport sector practitioners in the children’s physical education process to develop the necessary physical qualities and motor skills, with due account of the potential risks of vegetative and somatic diseases.

The educational conflict triggering factors may be listed as follows: content (shortage of popular forms of motor activity in the actual schoolchildren’s physical education process); shortage of the recreational component in the design of mass sports in the schoolchildren’s physical education process; due standardization of the school Physical Education curriculum and poor customization of the process for the natural and climatic conditions of the federal areas in the program implementation process; poor supply of optional programs and recommended programs in the schoolchildren’s physical education system; insufficient developmental level of the existing educational process diagnostics and management tools to rate the physical progress of the young people; and the need for a duly developed test system to rate the young people’s physical progress with account of the regional specifics.

The institutional factors may be listed as follows: poor cooperation of the educational establishments with the local Children and Youth Sport Schools (CYSS), Children and Youth Olympic Reserve Sport (CYORSS) Schools, sport clubs and other clubs in the relevant areas to jointly contribute to the local schoolchildren’s physical education process; inadequate efforts to develop and implement in the schoolchildren’s physical education practice duly differentiated and individualized approaches to the physical education process design customized to physical loads with due management of motor activity, variability of the training sessions and their instructional focuses; need for a fully-fledged correlation of the schoolchildren’s physical education lessons with the off-class physical education courses; shortage of focused educational initiatives to cultivate self-reliant and regular physical culture and sporting habits in the schoolchildren; need for an efficient motivation system for the schoolchildren to encourage their enthusiasm at Physical Education lessons; and the insufficient conflict-settlement competency of the relevant physical education and sport specialists that should more effectively manage the schoolchildren’s conflict settlement process.

Conclusion. In contrast to the commonly accepted opinion on solely destructive role of conflicts in the schoolchildren’s physical education process, we believe that a variety of constructive aspects may be found in the children’s conflicts. The initiatives to prevent and effectively manage conflicts in the schoolchildren’s physical education process need to give a due priority to the conflict triggering factor analysis including social, psychological, physiological, physiological and educational (closely interconnected) factors. The studies to identify and explore the conflict triggers in the schoolchildren’s physical education process based on a factor analysis make it possible to adequately diagnoze them and, based on the diagnostic data, develop the relevant strategies and tactics to effectively redesign the physical education process actors’ cooperation and identify the most promising ways to improve the schoolchildren’s physical education process.

References

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Corresponding author: bazeluk_vladimir@mail.ru

Abstract

The article underlines the need for integrated studies of conflict triggers in the schoolchildren’s physical education process. Objective of the study was to analyse the conflict triggers in the school children’s physical education process using factor analysis. The study was designed to perform a comprehensive analysis of the conflict triggers in the school children’s physical education process and support it by practical survey data. The practical stage of the study included questionnaire surveys and trigger classification based on response data and individual interviews of the physical education process participants including trainees, their families, physical education and sport specialists and conflict analysts. The study identified and classified the key conflict triggering factors including social, psychological, physiological and educational ones, with each group of the triggers being analysed. Detailed diagnostics of the conflict triggers give the means to find the most efficient ways to prevent, mitigate and settle conflicts in the interpersonal relationship of the physical education process participants to facilitate further progress of the students’ physical education system.