Dr.Hab., Professor A.A. Zaytsev¹
Dr.Hab., Professor T.G. Kovalenko²
B.V. Soroka¹
D.A. Ulyanov^2
1Kaliningrad State Technical University, Kaliningrad
²Volgograd State University, Volgograd

Keywords: physical education, university students, higher education, Federal State Education Standards, education program, physical culture, competences.

Background. The modern physical education process is being reformed by the national higher education system as required by the Federal State Education Standards (FSES) 3+ under implementation. The national education system transition to the FSES 3+ was initiated for the reason that the previous FSES 3 was not free of many drawbacks that need to be corrected since their interpretations and applications have been quite contradictory, and the government decided to develop a new set of standards rather than modify the existing ones, and the new set was named 3+. It should be recognized that designers of the standards have attained a lot albeit the new standards appear to be still deficient in some aspects: for example, some competences are interpreted as knowledge, skills and abilities. In terms of academic physical education, however, the new standards are very beneficial in many aspects, including, for instance, unification of competences virtually in every educational field that made it possible to optimize the academic programs in the relevant disciplines.

Objective of the study was to perform a retrospective analysis of the academic physical education programs and standards.

Study results and discussion. Based on the study data and analysis, we found the following trends in the existing academic physical education process design.

Trend 1 is the need for general ideological, programmatic, regulatory etc. fundamentals for the education process programming. In the FSES 3+ implementation process, every such fundamental may be applied albeit each of them is subject to some legal and institutional limitations. In case of the GTO Complex test application as one of such fundamentals, for instance, its obligatory implementation comes in conflict with the voluntariness principle. In case of sports being applied as one more fundamental, due consideration is to be made for the traditions of the existing national academic sports system with its sport clubs, associations and unions. As far as the personal physical culture building domain is concerned, the existing system offers no dependable toolkit to rate this quality.

Trend 2 is the practical physical training reduction trend. Given in Figures 1 and 2 hereunder is the statistical analysis of the academic hours distributed by the theoretical and practical components of the academic physical education curriculum.

Figure 1. Academic physical education hours

Figure 2. Academic physical education hours broken by theoretical and practical components

The above Figures demonstrate that the obligatory practical training hours in the academic physical education curriculum have been on the fall since 1990 and this trend was naturally of negative effect on the students’ motor activity.

Trend 3 is the lection material improvement trend to make it more relevant and sufficient. Special attention is given to the content of the theoretical education component to ensure due succession and compatibility of the school and academic theoretical materials.

Trend 4 is the growing need for the general cultural competence with a higher priority being given to the professional applied physical education (PAPE) design and implementation studies and initiatives.

Some specialists (they are in minority at the moment) come up with the idea to expand the range of competences build up through the academic disciplines with a special emphasis on the PAPE aspects to make the training more specific. It should be noted that the FSES 3+ give freedom to the educational establishments that offer such training in the relevant disciplines. The FSES 3+ provide, among other things, the right to the educational establishments to expand the range of competences in the education programming process with due consideration for the bachelors’ training programs in the specific knowledge/ activity fields.

The discipline-specific PAPE should be developed on the following basis. The relevant general professional competency (GPC) may be designed for a limited range of fields where special physical fitness is really required, and in all other fields such specialization should not be recommended since most of the existing physical culture tools are sufficient to attain the relevant goals. It is demonstrated by comparative analysis of the sport mastering programs in many sport disciplines with the professional training curricula in most of the professions.

Trend 5 is the expanding range of disciplines offered by the academic Physical Education Departments. The new FSES 3+, however, provide for a few disciplines that will be combined in the academic Physical Education and Sports Module, the number of the disciplines being limited by two or three.

Principal part of the above Module is to be designed for 72 hours (giving 2 credit units) of full-time education, the hours being distributed on an optional basis. One of the possible options is to assign the hours for two or three disciplines, for example:

1. Physical Education Basics course of 36 hours including 12 hours for lectures, 4 hours for practical/ instruction sessions and 20 hours for self-training viewed as an obligatory condition for any theoretical discipline design.

2. Physical Self-perfection course of 36 hours including 12 hours for lectures, 4 hours for practical/ instruction sessions and 20 hours for self self-training. Alternatively, both of the  disciplines may be merged into a single one under a different name.

3. Practical Training of university students, as provided by the FSES 3+, is to be designed on an elective basis, the elective disciplines taking 328 academic hours obligatory for studies that mean that these hours are non-convertible into credit units.

Therefore, the following FSES 3+ compliance system in the academic physical education domain may be offered:

Physical Education and Sports Module:

– Physical Education Basics discipline (1 credit unit);

– Physical Self-perfection discipline (1 credit unit); and

– Practical Physical Training and Sports discipline.

Having all three disciplines combined in one educational module, we may now develop a combined single education program (rather than three ones) named Physical Education and Sports Module: Disciplinary Academic Program.

Trend 6 refers to the programmatic and regulatory provisions for adaptive physical education of the students having health disorders and the relevant special educational needs. Presently the national education system objectively needs a fully-fledged adaptive education program and program manuals for this category of students.

Conclusion

Based on the above analysis, the following recommendations were made to improve the academic physical education process as required by the new-generation educational standard:

• Develop general fundamentals for the academic physical education program design and implementation process.
• Step up the obligatory academic practical training component to the required minimum of 60-64 hours per semester in the first three academic years.
• Work out a uniform textbook for the theoretical academic physical education curricula with a special emphasis on the subjects of high priority for modern young people including family physical culture, healthy lifestyles, Olympic movement, individual physical education programming guides etc.
• Spell out the physical training disciplines that require the relevant obligatory applied sport competences being acquired.
• Apply the academic Physical Education and Sports module to design the education process and build up the relevant general cultural competences as required by the FSES 3+.

References

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Corresponding author: tatyana.kovalenko@volsu.ru

Abstract

Objective of the study was to analyse the academic physical education programs in the context of the Federal State Education Standards (FSES) 3+ implementation process and back it by a retrospective analysis of the academic physical education programs and standards. The following recommendations were made to improve the academic physical education process as required by the new-generation educational standard:

• Develop general fundamentals for the academic physical education program design and implementation process.
• Step up the obligatory academic practical training component to the required minimum of 60-64 hours per semester in the first three academic years.
• Work out a uniform textbook for the theoretical academic physical education curricula with a special emphasis on the subjects of high priority for the modern young people including family physical culture, healthy lifestyles, Olympic movement, individual physical education programming guides etc.
• Spell out the physical training disciplines that require the relevant obligatory applied sport competences being acquired.
• Apply the academic Physical Education and Sports module to design the education process and build up the relevant general cultural competences as required by the FSES 3+.