Abstract
The university stage is a change stage in the lives of young people, both on psychosomatic and on the relational-social level. The natural question that derives as a consequence of these changes would be: Are there significant differences in the results recorded to prove that motion games adapted to the age period would be necessary for the students’ personal development at this age stage? The present research was based on the hypothesis according to which weekly applied motion games on the students would be a positive starting point in their personal development, while their absence would produce a visible differentiation between individuals with a negative effect in the personal relational development. “Motion Games” are well received regardless of the students’ age due to the fact that they support personal development. The absence of motion games produces a visible differentiation with a negative effect on personal development.
Keywords: Personal developmentPhysical Educationstudents
1. Introduction
"We were created to succeed, we have the necessary inner strength, we are equipped with all
the physical, mental and emotional resources that we need in order to take control of our lives and
build our lives the way we want," stated Anthony Robbins in the preface of the book
the connection between sport and physical…” education….” is important as it serves as a bridge
beyond the physical limitations ……with which …. individuals must grapple in their lives.”
(Bechar, & Grosu, 2016). It is said about us, as species, that we were created to win and not to
regard ourselves as victims, by remaining helpless in front of the impediments that we have to face.
But one cannot become a winner without realizing that he/she has to work with himself/herself, to
have certain activities that eliminate routine and to become different from others. This aspect,
according to experts, represents the concept of “Personal Development”, also named “self help”,
(Robbins, 2002), in Romanian having the meaning “help yourself”.
2. Hypothesis
This research started from the hypothesis according to which the existence of motion games
in the lesson plan for each week module of the students, namely in the second sequence of the
lesson – also entitled harmonious physical development – would accelerate the phenomenon named
personal development, due to the abilities of involving the individual directly into the action, while
the absence of a motion game from the second part would produce a visible differentiation between
students within the group. The absence of the second part would also slower the phenomenon of
personal development.
3. Methods
3.1. Subjects
This research was undertaken on a group of 91 students randomly chosen from the Letters
and Sciences Faculty, during Physical Education lessons. The subjects were organized into two
groups: Experiment group – No. I, composed of 44 subjects; Control group - No. II, composed of
47 randomly selected subjects - that, at least theoretically, would have the same area of interest.
3.2. Research methods
The bibliographic study method (the reasons taken into consideration for the determination
of the research hypothesis came from the reference literature and from the experience gained in the
didactic process); The observation method (consisted of the systematical tracking of the motion
games in the lesson plan from each of the students’ weekly module and the influence they have
upon the phenomenon entitled personal development); Investigation method (we used the
conversation with the theme "A challenge", considered a mental exercise, of informing and
differentiating, absolutely useful for personal development, and the questionnaire entitled
influence of motion games in personal development" structured on 20 items, this questionnaire
being used and standardized by Chiriţă (1983), while following the demands of the research
methodology. We mention that the present research is more of an observation study, having the
purpose of observing the influence of motion games systematically applied in the students’ Physical
Education classes. For this reason, we applied the questionnaire pertaining to Chiriţă (1983), which
was adapted, and transformed according to the requirements of the proposed study, due to the fact
that “… only where you work with yourself in a direct manner is considered personal
development.” The opinion of the researched groupwas relevant for our research and was verified
on the basis of the above-mentioned questionnaire, which represented the benchmark in our study,
and our manner of confirming the research hypothesis. The registered indicators were recorded in
Tables no. 01 and 02. In these tables we recorded and explained the opinions for each item,
followed by an analysis; The statistical-mathematical method – allowed us to describe and
characterize on objective and numerical bases regarding the different pieces of data representing the
measured indicators and favored the extraction of the essence concerning the topic from a series of
data; The graphical method - implied a system of rules followed for the purpose of visualization
and suggestive presentation of figures, data and calculated indicators.
3.3. Research purpose
The research has the purpose of emphasizing the fact that the presence of motion games for
students in their weekly program is a positive phenomenon which activates the work with the self
and that sets the individual on the state of “doing”' for knowing his resources, in order to correct the
mistakes that occur, or to move to another intellectual level in their personal development.
It appears that their absence would produce a visible differentiation, a regress in the
personal development with a negative effect for the physical reality, self knowledge and would lead
to an undesirable outcome regarding the individuals’ personal and relational development.
4. Research content
We mention that the present research is more of an observation study, having the purpose of
observing the influence of motion games systematically applied in the students’ Physical Education
classes, as a starting point.
Another topic of the research is the observation of the effects deriving from the proposed
program, thus we have to mention that we used a special program on the experiment group (GE), a
program that was not included in the activity of control group (GC), based on motion games and
constructive discussions for the formation of personal development, based on the topic “A
challenge”.
We have to mention that motion games are usually found in Physical Education lessons in
the second sequence called – “Preparing the body for effort”. Therefore, to be more precise, more
analytical at this university level – at which we believe that, to be able to define education, students
should follow a classical methodical structure developed in sequences.
Despite possible criticism or contradictions regarding our view, we state that where there are
rules and order, chaos is removed and personal evolution has the possibility to progress, thus
leading in time to personal growth. It is not necessary to follow all the 7/8 sequences, but at least
the first 4 should be fully and exactly followed and performed under the careful supervision and
directions of a teacher or of a member of the didactic staff.
The second module is dedicated to optional sports games, where students have the
opportunity to choose certain sports games, according to their preferences. They are able to form
teams, to socialize, to spend time beneficially from an emotional, motor, and social point of view,
thus stimulating three extremely important fields involved in personal development: mental,
emotional and motor, all of them requiring the participant to work with himself/herself, and through
the self, in other words self-working, therefore creating personal experiences.
We believe that this would be influenced by the engine of contradictions, as feelings are be
different and unique for each individual and cannot be borrowed.
These are achieved by external requirements, “internal possibilities” and skills gained by
each individual due to the amount of information that he assimilates externally or through writing,
to the weekly motric activities systematically combined with motion games in such a manner that
“the child’s natural ability of expression – the game – will be used as an instrument in personal
development” Golu, & Ionita, 2009).
This phenomenon of personal development also entitled “self help” would include,
according to the specialists’ opinion, a series of activities that would help, in time, any individual
who is trying to become a better person: starting with certain aspects that each human being could
do, for example motion, physical exercise, various sports games or sports, reading books about
relationships, socialization, love, communication, creativity and any other area that impresses
people as rational and conscious beings.
If we take into consideration the specialists’ opinions, the five elements considered until
lately fundamental in personal development, namely: reading books, taking courses, suggestive
quotes that can stimulate the mind, motivational films that have an impact on the mind, positive
thinking, all these do not represent a trigger anymore in the complicated mechanism of personal
development.
Other elements are essential, elements that until recently were almost ignored by our society,
because we can talk about personal development only when one directly works with oneself. One
can do this with exercise, various sports games and especially motion games with simple, but
pleasant rules, because they are devoid of aggression, abuse, and allow a recharge with positive
energy, integration into the surrounding reality without fear, and the practice of cognitive,
imaginative and creative skills.
These are qualities that will later lead to intellectual modeling, will mature the individual
and will help him/her take a qualitative leap in his "personal development", resembling the action
of “climbing stairs”, where stairs represent the steps that one has to go through in the process of
becoming more oneself and seeing the place that the individual possesses on the social ladder, in
his/her own evolution.
In order to verify the aforementioned aspects and to improve the image of Physical
Education in general and motion in particular, we designed and completed a special program based
on the motion games adapted to the specific age and faculty (given that we are not an institution in
the field, and students have more than 18 years old).
This program should be interesting for them, should be captivating, therefore it relies on
motion games that stimulate: thinking, responsiveness, mental flexibility, emotion, self-control,
stress relief, satisfaction of the desire for motion, the pleasure of learning, and it systematically
developed, being simultaneously, but differently, applied on two groups, each group having its own
program.
These two groups were:
=An Experiment Group - Group No. I;
=A Control Group - Group No. II.
The program was generically entitled “Motion games" and “A challenge". “Motion games"
was implemented on the experiment group (GE), weekly, in the second sequence of each Physical
Education class. We reserved 10-15 minutes at the end of each class for debates on the lesson,
debates that were constructive, and under a playful manner, “A challenge"was considered a mental
exercise. This process was continued over a year. The program was applied only on the experiment
group – no. I, while the Group Control – No. II did not participate in this program, and they
performed Physical Education classes according to the standard program, namely without motion
games or themed debates. We have to mention that the two groups were randomly chosen from the
Letters and Sciences Faculty.
Surely, there may be objections regarding this research, but one has to take into
consideration that this approach was designed as an observation study, with the purpose of
perceiving whether motion games have an influence of any kind on personal development. They
can be used as such in Physical Education classes for people enrolled in the university program,
because education does not end in high school, especially in this field.
This explanation is related to the debate having the theme “A challenge”, considered a
mental exercise, with the aim of raising the subjects’ awareness concerning the use of terms and the
type of action. This aspect refers to “reading a book“, ”participating in personal development
courses”, “analyzing suggestive quotes that can stimulate the mind”, “motivational movies”, etc.,
and what happens after these actions are performed. The results were recorded in Tables no. 01 and
no. 02 (see details in table below):
Motion games had themes related to personal development. Here are some examples of
and reaction control. “Defend the fortress” – contributes to the “leader” behavior. “Ducks and
hunters” – contributes to learning responsibility, developing distributive attention, observation,
observing the behaviour of the opponents but also of the people around them. “Little bird, change
your nest!” – contributes to learning perseverance. “Logs on rolls”- contribute to the development
of courage, and, of course, there any many other examples, but we think these are enough for the
reader to understand our statement.
Through these games, we aimed to stimulate initiative, self-control, responsibility,
perseverance, courage, etc. (Internet - Motroc, 2009), extremely important qualities, necessary in
achieving “self help”. We mention that we reserved 15-20 minutes from the end of every lesson
statement: “Would you read a book! How would it help you?”; “Do courses help in personal
development?”; “A suggestive quote”; “Physical Exercise”; “Motion Games”. How do these
influence personal development? The results were recorded in Tables no. 01 and no. 02 (see data in
the tables above).
We resume the explanation - These groups were made out of two types of people, namely:
•
experiment group were given motion games in every class over a year - and a 10-15 minutes
themed debate entitled “A challenge” – considered a mental exercise absolutely necessary in
developing initiative, self control, responsibility, courage, perseverance, etc. Internet - Motroc N.,
L., 2009).
Education classes developed according to the standard methodology, namely without motion games
in the program.
5. Findings and Discussion
In the questionnaire (see Tables no. 01 and 02), questions were organized in such a manner
as to help in the discovery of reality regarding personal development. Research subjects were
organized into two groups. Based on these two groups, we conducted a series of testing at the end
of the academic year (see Tables no. 01 and 02). The opinion of the group was relevant for our
research and was verified with the help of the questionnaire, which represented the barometer in
our research and a manner of verifying the research hypothesis, and the registered indicators were
recorded in Tables No. 01 and 02. In these tables, we recorded and explained opinions for each
item and then analyzed them. One may question the need of two tables for one questionnaire. This
is due to the two types of questions (items) in our research, namely:
that showed clear knowledge about the notion of ”personal development”.
These questions allowed us to emphasize the idea that motion games have a positive impact in
realizing the discovery of physical reality, self awareness, and, naturally, for the students’ the
personal development, and relationships between individuals.
We developed two sets of questions (A) – with 11 questions and (B) - with 9 questions, as
described above, some of the questions were marked with an asterisk because they are relevant
questions for our research, which helped us verify each individual’s statement and in Tables
02 we aimed, as required by the research, to render relevant statistical indicators for personal
development in percentage (%) for all 91 subjects that participated in the experiment. As one may
notice, not all subjects registered similar answers, therefore significant differences appear. This is
the reason for which the number of students who responded with “Yes" or “No" is different from
the number of subjects who entered the research and helped us submit certain information relevant
to personal development (see Tables no. 01 and no. 02 - we abbreviated in Table no. 01 and no. 02
students = s. due to the lack of space). As a result of the recorded data in the two tables and the
survey conducted for the 91 students in the research we observed a difference between the two
groups (GE and GC) (Tables
In the following lines, we put our observations as a consequence of the questionnaire
analysis:
personal development for the two groups (GE and GC). Answers are suggestive and we analyzed
them as following:
- For question No. 1 - You know who you really are? - Although we recorded a maximum of 44
subjects, namely (GE) and 47 (GC) with a 100%, who answered “Yes”, when they had to explain
who they were, subjects from the control group (GC) responded “I do not know“, and subjects from
the experiment group (GE) wrote their names as a result, thus managing to identify themselves, and
as a consequence we consider this a step forward in personal development.
- For question No. 11 – Can a motion game be a way of personal development? Explain. The
Experiment Group (GE), with a total of 42 students and a percentage of 95.46%, answered “Yes”
and offered the following explanation: yes, through the developed intuition, behavior when having
to respect rules, acceptance and defeats, that at the end can be seen as a lesson. While the control
group (GC), having a standard program without motion games, and a number of 35 students – a
percentage of 74.46% - answered “No, I do not know”, because they have not realized the
constructive dimension of these games for their personal development.
- Also noticeable discrepancies appear between the two groups and for
answers and percentage in Tables no. 01 and 02). As a consequence, the absence of prior training
and information leads to a wrong mentality about things that apparently are used correctly (for
example – “I read to cultivate myself”, reading without implementing the phenomenon that the
reader has just learned does not produce any change, he/she only has the information, but to cause
personal development one has to do something with it and with oneself), and only in this manner
the individual would achieve “personal development”. So none of the phenomena above (reading,
attending personal development courses etc.) used separately in conditions of isolation, can
determine personal development.
It appears that students from the experiment group (GE), as a result of the program
generically entitled “Motion Games” and “A challenge" were those who discovered the truth after
enrolling in the described program, namely that only if one directly works with oneself, personal
development occurs. Therefore, we can sustain and state the aforementioned, given the percentages
recorded in Table No. 01 for the two questions, thus confirming the hypothesis of the research. This
aspect is reinforced by the results recorded and the second set of questions (see Table no. 02).
achieving the discovery of physical reality and self awareness, thus leading to the students’
personal development.
The 39 students, namely a percentage of 88.63% in the experiment group (GE) said they have
personality; they are sociable, passers trough life. This means they realized the extent of life, the
passage of time and the importance of defined personalities in personal development, while
students from the control group (GC), 40 in number and a percentage of 85.11%, find themselves
at the opposite side, as they describe themselves from a physical point of view as: tall, fat, thin,
dark / brunette, blonde, etc. This is a trivial description without reference to their personality,
indicating immaturity in thinking and a slower rate of personal development. Apart from these
issues, we also mention the answers given for questions no. 17 and no. 20, which leave the topic
open for debate and for everyone interested in researching this issue (see Table no. 02). As one
may observe from the research, human beings were created to succeed, having the necessary
inner strength, but it is not enough to use only reading, attending courses, using quotes, watching
motivational films, using positive thinking for personal development. These are no longer enough
to represent a trigger in the complicated mechanism of personal development, due to the fact that:
reading only helps the mind and the memory and provides information, attending personal
development courses – other people do things for an individual – one receives information about
what personal development means and some methods that have worked for others, not
guaranteed to work for him/her; suggestive quotes represent the wisdom of others, not of the
respective individual, one cannot have the same experience as another person who became wise
by himself/herself; motivational films are experiences that do not belong to the individual and,
according to unwritten laws, a mistake cannot be identically repeated, therefore it can only
remain an example of “what should not be done”. Other elements are essential, which have been,
until recently, almost ignored by our society, namely physical motion, physical exercise, various
sports games and especially motion games with simple rules of cognitive capacities, imaginative,
creative practice, these representing qualities which will later lead to maturing, to the
evolutionary leap, because only at this point, in this context – of the individual working with
oneself, active on all levels and learning that personal development is about him/her. Only where
one directly works with the self, we may say that we have personal development, otherwise being
nothing more than exercises, and in motion games we fulfill the work with the self. (See the Fig.
6. Conclusions
Weekly applied motion games in the students’ schedule would be a starting point with a
positive effect in their personal development. We believe that the psychological development
would be influenced by the engine of contradictions, achieved by external requirements, “internal
possibilities” and skills gained by each individual due to the weekly motric activities systematically
combined with motion games, because they can stimulate the mind and help their personal
development
People were created to succeed, having the inner strength, although it is not enough in
personal development only to use reading books, to attend courses about personal development, to
have suggestive quotes that can stimulate the mind, to watch motivational movies with an impact
on the psyche, positive thinking, as these no longer represent the trigger in the complicated
mechanism that determines personal development:
Reading only helps the mind and the memory and provides information, attending personal
development courses – other people do things for an individual – one receives information about
what personal development means and some methods that have worked for others, not guaranteed
to work for him/her; suggestive quotes represent the wisdom of others, not of the respective
individual, one cannot have the same experience as another person who became wise by
himself/herself.
None of the mentioned phenomena (reading, attending personal development courses, etc.)
used separately in conditions of isolation, can determine personal development.
It appears that students from the experiment group (GE), as a result of the program
generically entitled “Motion Games“, and “A Challenge” were those who realized the truth
after they entered the described program, namely that only where one work directly with
oneself, we can discuss about personal development. Therefore,
aforementioned, based on the percentages recorded in Table No. 01 for the two questions,
thus confirming the research hypothesis.
Other elements are essential, which have been, until recently, almost ignored by our society,
namely physical motion, physical exercise, various sports games and especially motion games with
simple rules of cognitive capacities, imaginative, creative practice, these representing qualities
which will later lead to maturing, to the evolutionary leap.
The absence of motion games from the second link would produce a visible differentiation
of relationship for students in the group, with a regression of the phenomenon of personal
development, thus confirming the research hypothesis.
Only where one directly works with the self, we may say that we have personal
development, otherwise being nothing more than exercises, since personal development is about the
self.
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Cite this article as:
Lupu, E., Georgeta, N., Elena, S., & Cecilia, G. (2017). The Influence Of Motıon Games In Students’ Personal Development. In Z. Bekirogullari, M. Y. Minas, & R. X. Thambusamy (Eds.), Living the Future: Technology, Engineering, Education & Computer, vol 25. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 33-47). Future Academy. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2017.07.4