PhD, Professor S.I. Belykh
Donetsk National University, Donetsk

Keywords: physical education values, student’s personality, individualized academic physical education.

Background. Problems of the modern physical education content and organisation including the academic non-core physical education curriculum related to the anthropocentric didactics in this cultural domain and calling for innovations in the organization and management component of the national academic education system – are still far from final solutions [3]. It should be noted that the students’ physical development and health – despite the generally positive trends towards activation of the research projects associated with the numbers of state-owned and private universities being on the rise – still raise serious concerns [4].

As far as the value resource of physical culture and sports in the modern society is concerned, two levels of values shall be considered – public and individual – and we need to realize the mechanisms of the public values being transformed into individual assets of each person. “Individual level of the physical culture values is determined by the individual knowledgebase in the physical perfection domain with the relevant motor skills and abilities and self-control for a healthy lifestyle, social and psychological priorities and motivations for physical training and sports” [8, p.6].

Objective of the study was to provide theoretical provisions for an axiological approach to the individualised academic physical education.

Study results and discussion. An axiological approach makes an emphasis on the individual assessment of the physical culture values and may be applied for rating of their importance. An individualised educational approach makes it possible to go beyond the constraints of the mass reproduction priorities of the traditional physical education standards to make the education more personal and help students mobilise their creative individual resources. This approach implies students being actively engaged in the physical education values adoption activities. Individual engagement and contribution to the educational process is perceived as a purposeful and efficient subjective activity; and as an educator-student cooperation, with the education subject served by the process object and digested by the process subject [2]. The relevant provisions need to be put in place to make the values-governed and all-round cultural-recreational developmental approach efficient in terms of the physical education theory and practice of the physical training and health process.

We believe that specifics of the modern academic physical education are determined by at least the following factors:

– Modern academic physical education shall in fact be viewed as a crowning stage in the years-long system training and development service provided under the children’s and youth components of the valid Physical Education and Health disciplines; and, therefore, this stage is specific in its goal-setting component versus the other physical education models offered by lower-level educational establishments;

– Academic physical education designed to develop professional competences in students is driven by its supreme mission that is to secure top quality of the national academic education services;

– Modern academic physical education is also specific in the sense that it is designed to develop both high ethical and civic qualities important for modern knowledgeable, skilful and intelligent specialist, and professional fitness with a variety of its multiple competences for success of the individual creative professional career including active longevity and healthy productive lifestyle;

– Since most disciplines offered in a modern university, as opposed to the professional vocational training system, make no emphasis on the physical qualities required by professional responsibilities, the very idea of applied professional physical education (APPE) viewed as a fundamental component of a future specialist training process is being deeply revised and reformed nowadays;

– In the context of the ongoing reform of the academic physical education process, we reconsider the professional priorities of the valid Physical Education discipline so as to make an emphasis on the modern specialist development and evolution to a physical education enthusiast highly competent and active in health issues – rather than holding to the traditional APPE ideas and provisions (albeit they are still fully effective and beneficial for some military academies and a few civil specialties);

– The traditional priorities of academic physical education, generally designed to develop students’ physicality, need to be complemented by a non-core physical education subsystem making a special emphasis on the health and physical progress related values with a variety of the relevant competences required for a highly educated professional to be able to protect and improve, on a self-reliant basis, his/her own health both in the academic educational process and further professional career [1].

In our studies we proceed from the assumption that “a physical development process is impossible unless supported by a due physical education and culture and persistent training viewed as a determined competency-building activity; whilst education in its turn is unthinkable without sound physical culture. This means that the physical culture domain is subject to the well-known provision of classical pedagogics that an educational process trains mentally, and mental training (character building) educates; and this concept is further complemented by the idea that the mental training process on the whole (and physical training in particular) shall (or should) effectively develop an individual via the personal culture (including its physical component) building process … It is the naturally predetermined physical or somato-operational imperfection of every human coming to the world and infinitely striving to learn and self-identify – that may be referred to as an anthropological foundation of an education process in the physical culture domain … Categorical system of the modern educational anthropology is developed based on the notions of reflexivity, self-identification, self-education and self-perception that are designed to reflect the essence of the personality-centred educational process via the interpersonal relationship of the education and development process actors” [5, p. 15, 16].

The notion of physical education offered by L.I. Lubysheva defines the three-dimensional nature of the process (socio-psychological, intellectual and bodily-physical) and makes a special emphasis on the intellectual basis of the personal physical education process that shapes up the natural scientific and humanitarian knowledge in a harmonised manner [7].

To reinforce the logics and grounds for further contemplations, we would offer the following key postulate: “Personal physical culture cannot be formed unless persistently developed by an effective physical education process; and physical education as such cannot progress unless supported by sound education in the field of physical culture” [6, p. 59].

Conclusion. It is the objective (social requirements) and subjective (individual agenda) needs in different physical activities that may be viewed as the key criteria for the academic physical education process design. Every type of the modern physical culture shall be supported by its own theory, design basics, missions, tools, methods and models with due interconnections with other types. Such an approach is directly dictated by individual needs, motivations and preferences of every student in the academic physical education domain; and it notably contributes to the physical education service image in the ongoing academic educational process humanisation reforms.

References

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2. Belykh S.I. Mesto aksiologicheskogo podkhoda v lichnostno orientirovannom fizicheskom vospitanii studentov [Place of axiological approach in personality-centered physical education of students]. VISNIK Luganskogo natsIonalnogo unIversitetu ImenI Tarasa Shevchenka (pedagogIchnI nauki), 2013, no. 10 (269), pp. 81-93.
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Corresponding author: kf.physical_education@donnu.ru

Abstract

The study gives substantiations for the values-governed reform model applicable to the academic Physical Education discipline and specifies the following key groups of criteria for the academic physical education process redesign initiatives: objective (i.e. social requirements) and subjective (individual agenda) needs for different types of physical activity. The study demonstrates the need for every physical education type being supported by its own theory, design basics, missions, tools, methods and models with due interconnections with other types.

The physical development and health standards of university students have been on decline and raised concerns for the last few decades, with the growing numbers of students being attributed to special health groups. The study data show that due personal physical culture shall be formed to have biological, social, physical (motor) and spiritual (intellectual) dimensions of the human nature duly unified and harmonised; and the study data demonstrate that axiological grounds may be effectively applied for the individualised academic physical education process design.