Psychological Selection Bases Of Volunteers Accompanying Sports Events

Abstract

The article analyzes results of the study of psychological readiness of volunteers who participate in the organization of sports events. During the study of the effectiveness of the selection of volunteers, using as an example the volunteer movement in sports events, various aspects of the structure of psychological readiness to support volunteering are considered. The importance for the development of volunteer personality is emphasized. It is determined that the key concept in this issue is the idea of “readiness”. According to the analysis of various approaches to the notion of “psychological readiness” of a person, the authors determined that this complex of individual and typological characteristics determines the effectiveness of volunteers in the field of accompanying sports events. The analysis of the incentives of volunteering activities showed that the reasons of the activities of volunteers accompanying sports events are directly related to the activity area, but they are not the only factors forming the psychological readiness of a person to volunteer activities. Summing up the study results, the factors of the attitudes of volunteers towards the volunteer movement were identified. These factors determine its psychological readiness to participate in volunteer movement and conventionally belong to two groups: external and internal factors. The group of external factors includes special programs and experience. The group of internal factors includes the level of self-actualization of a volunteer, the desire for non-manipulative relationships with other people, flexibility in communication, ability to self-disclosure and the absence of social stereotypes, high level of empathy.

Keywords: Volunteersvolunteering activityreadinesspsychological readiness

Introduction

In pedagogical theory and practice, it is believed that the involvement of young people in volunteer movement creates the prerequisites for the formation of a system of self-regulation of Russian society, when a part of the problems can be solved at the expense of the internal potential of society. The rise in the popularity of sports events in XXI requires great efforts on the part of organizers, including financial ones. Therefore, the staging of sports events in modern unpredictable conditions (the growth of aggressiveness of “fans”, etc.) actualizes the problem of accompanying sports events (Suchkov, 2011).

Due to the fact that volunteer movement develop and become more popular, the problem of high-quality psychological and pedagogical selection of volunteers to accompany sports and other events becomes extremely important.

For the effective organization of volunteer activities of sports events, it is important to know the peculiarities of psychological readiness of young people for this activity (Averin, 2012; Damadaeva, 2011; Geoff & Ellen, 2009; Azarova, 2008; Shakhov & Damadaeva, 2011; Ilina, 2012).

Problem Statement

The concept of “ volunteering ”, adopted in the resolution of the UN General Assembly in 2002, is: “activities carried out voluntarily and for the benefit of whole society, for which monetary reward is not the main motivating factor” (the principle “who else if not, we ?” is realized). Volunteer activity is “a wide range of activities, including traditional forms of mutual aid and self-help, official provision of services and other forms of civic participation, which is carried out voluntarily for the benefit of public without rewards” (Averin, 2012, p. 132).

The distinctive feature of volunteering is its high social significance and voluntary participation. That is, its participants have the complete freedom to choose the type and forms of activity (also volunteering does not impose strict requirements on the experience and qualifications of an individual).

The participation of young people in altruistic volunteer activities is the most important means of the formation of spiritual and moral values of an individual, since volunteer activities are based on civic motivation of high moral considerations.

A person who provides volunteer assistance in accompanying sport events should possess specific competences and comply with the norms and rules of its provision.

Research Questions

The key concept in this issue is the idea of “readiness”. Scientists investigated various aspects of psychological “readiness” phenomenon: psychological and practical, functional and personal readiness, general and special aspects of readiness, mental and physical readiness.

According to the analysis of various approaches to the idea of “psychological readiness” of an individual, it can be assumed that this is a complex of their individual and typological characteristics, which determines the effectiveness of volunteers in the field of sports events.

During the study of the problem of readiness for activity, scientists consider “psychological readiness” as a conscious activity that helps individuals to effectively solve tasks and promote efficient activity (Geoff & Ellen, 2009). Dyachenko and Kandybovich (1976) considering “psychological readiness” for activity as its prerequisite believe that it helps to use correctly knowledge, experience, personal qualities, to redirect activities in unforeseen situations.

A holistic new formation is understood under the psychological readiness to perform certain activities (including the maintenance of sports events). This formation includes a set of personality components:

- Cognitive (understanding of a task, assessment of its significance for the success of a sporting event, presentation of projected changes of volunteer activities, etc.);

- Motivational and value (the system of purposes, values and orientations, social and psychological attitudes to help successfully accomplish a task, the desire to succeed);

- Emotional-volitional (the system of emotional and volitional properties, the ability to use the resources of an individual, to achieve the goal, to resist the factors of stress, tension, adverse conditions of professional activity, a sense of professional responsibility);

- Communicative (the ability to communicate, to understand representatives of different countries, to possess developed communication skills) (Averin, 2012).

The basis of psychological readiness of the activities of volunteers accompanying sports events are the motivation and moral character of this type of activity. It is believed that, understanding the motives of its activities (“why am I doing this?”), it becomes meaningful (“why am I doing this?”), and helps to achieve a personal goal as a result of this activity (“what do I have as a result of my activity?”).

The incentives of volunteers accompanying sports events can be divided into two main groups:

- Idealistic (enthusiasm and kindness; the desire to be useful to other people and society; empathic attitude to current sports events; the desire to realize themselves; the need for contacts with other people);

- Pragmatic (incentives associated with obtaining the necessary skills in the future; preparing for a career; acquiring knowledge, skills and qualifications in community-oriented activities; gaining professional experience, information, useful connections).

Psychological readiness for volunteer activities sports events includes:

- Cognitive readiness (raising awareness on the problems of the organization and support of sports events);

- Motivation readiness (awareness of the role and meaning of volunteering);

- Communicative readiness (development of communication skills, conflict resolution, skills to work in a dynamic group);

- Personal readiness (development of new personal qualities, individual style of professional activity, individuality in the aspect of the realization of social interests);

- Executive readiness (awareness of responsibility, development of skills for making independent decisions, etc.).

The process of development of psychological readiness for volunteering involves:

- Awareness of own needs and the requirements of others for activities to accompany sports events;

- Awareness of purpose and objectives;

- Assessment of the conditions accompanying sports events;

- Actualization of experience of accompanying such events;

- Determination of the conditions and algorithm for solving problems of accompanying sports events;

- Forecasting changes of mental processes, and opportunities to achieve results;

- Concentration of will in accordance with the tasks and conditions of accompanying of sporting events.

Experts believe that the need for psychological accompanying of sporting events is explained by a specific area of activity - sporting events.

The conditions for the selection of volunteers accompanying sports events is a certain system aimed at the determination of an acceptable level:

- Formation of personal and professional qualities;

- Determination of purpose in the process of accompanying sports events;

- Formation of a positive attitude towards volunteering;

- Development of a focus on positive results in the field of sports events.

Thus, the psychological support of volunteers of sports activities is aimed at not only preparation of a person to participate in the organization of sport project (or cultural, social, etc.), but also at the support of activities of it in order to develop own qualities and abilities and master the skills of a responsible approach to life.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this research is to study psychological readiness of volunteers accompanying sports events, its structure and development conditions. The study of the issue of effective selection of young people to volunteer activities of sports events allowed identifying contradictions between the requirements of society to those people accompanying sports events and the degree of psychological readiness of young people participating in a volunteer organization as well as inadequate reasonableness of psychological and pedagogical characteristics tools and technologies ensuring the activity effectiveness in this area.

Research Methods

Introducing the ideas about volunteer movement, a special, sometimes new role is assigned to the readiness of young people for altruistic involvement in social process, because the success of a sports event is to some extent determined by their role. In this process, their ability to adapt to new requirements largely depends on the ability and desire to make their own, individual contribution to the implementation of volunteering, its development and improvement.

A special role in the readiness of volunteers is played by its professionally significant psychological qualities. After all, their readiness lies not only in the presence of desire, but also in the moral, psychological readiness of young people to social activities.

Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify psychological factors of the readiness of volunteers to accompany sports competitions. Thus, 200 respondents participated in this study, 100 of which were first participating in volunteer activities, and 100 had already had little experience of participation. The study group included volunteers accompanying the 2018 European Championship in Makhachkala (the Republic of Dagestan).

The authors used the following methods:

- Methods of diagnosing the level of empathic abilities of Boyko (2002) are used. It makes it possible to determine rational, emotional, intuitive channels of empathy, as well as orientations that contribute to empathy, identification and penetrating ability to empathy;

- Self-actualization test (SAT), which contains the following scales: orientation in time, support, values, behavior plasticity, sensitivity, spontaneity, self-esteem, self-acceptance, ideas about human nature, synergy, acceptance of aggression, contact, cognitive needs and creativity.

Statistical processing of the research results is carried out with the help of Student's T-test in order to identify differences in the attitude towards volunteer activities of students in accompanying sports events of various educational institutions.

Findings

The results according to “Self-knowledge” test. The readiness to work as a volunteer in accompanying sports events is manifested to a much greater degree (psychological: t = -3.59, p = 0.000; and professional: t = -3.02; p = 0.004), regardless of the experience in volunteering.

In terms of the quality of volunteer activity, depending on volunteer experience, there are no significant differences between women and men volunteers, however, a less result is consistently observed among volunteers who have little experience of volunteer work and who have not previously participated in sport event volunteering.

The results showed that the immediate effectiveness of the involvement of a young person in this process affects a positive attitude to volunteering (Shakhov & Damadaeva, 2011).

Taking into account the problems and difficulties that may arise in the process of volunteering in a team, the following research results should be noted:

- 70% of volunteers note that the problem is the lack of experience and the fear of negative perception of others around them (emotional rejection, mockery, aggression, etc.);

- 55% of volunteers name the fear of unusual and difficult problems in volunteering of sports events as a problem.

Thus, the main difficulties that may arise in the process of participation of Dagestan volunteers in sports events are (according to the opinion of volunteers themselves) the difficulties of a psychological nature - the lack of readiness of other people and volunteers themselves to accept volunteering.

Moreover, the volunteers accompanying sports events face several problems and difficulties. They are as follows: 60.5% of volunteers have problems related to the lack of special education; 60% is in the need for methodological support (with complete absence of special programs and other literature); 40% of volunteers have a heavy emotional burden (which can lead to emotional burnout), and which arose as a result of interpersonal, personal and organizational problems.

Therefore, volunteers note that for psychological comfort in volunteering activities of sports events, they lack methodological support and additional training, while the need for emotional stress is present, but should not go beyond certain limits.

In terms of the self-actualization test, higher rates were found among the volunteers accompanying sports activities in the following characteristics: support (t = -3.07; p = 0.003), value orientations (t = -3.43; p = 0.001), spontaneity (t = -2.12; p = 0.04), self-esteem (t = -3.58; p = 0, 0009), cognitive need (t = -2.26; p = 0.02), creativity (t = - 2.37; p = 0.02).

Such volunteers in their activities are guided by humanistic values that determine the desire to participate in volunteer movement.

High levels of creativity among volunteers accompanying sports events are reasoned by the requirements that the specificity of their activities.

In order to identify the relation between psychological characteristics of volunteers and attitudes towards volunteer movement, the Pearson correlation coefficient was used.

It was found that the readiness of volunteers to participate in volunteer activities of sports events is largely reasoned by the fact that they share the values of self-actualization. In addition, they strive for non-manipulative relationships with other people, flexibility in communication, development of self-realization and lack of social stereotypes.

Thus, the presence of humanistic values (r = 0.33), a high level of empathy (r = 0.37), are associated with the readiness of a volunteer to participate in volunteer movement.

Conclusion

The study of the peculiarities of psychological and pedagogical selection of volunteers accompanying sports events allows identifying priority areas of support in the formation and development of their psychological readiness to accompany sports events:

- Development of youth motivation to support sports events through their inclusion in active volunteer activities;

- Improvement of the process of development of psychological readiness in the context of the content and its direct organization;

- Creation of a system of psychological and pedagogical conditions for the development of psychological readiness in the process of direct support of sports events.

The process of the formation of psychological readiness to volunteer activities to accompany sports events is a sequence of interrelated actions:

- Awareness of the need for volunteer activities to accompany sports events;

- Awareness of the purposes and objectives of volunteer activities, the implementation of which will lead to the satisfaction of posed tasks and psychological comfort;

- Understanding and assessment of the conditions for activities related to the maintenance of sports events, updating the experience related to solving problems of volunteering activities;

- Determination of the upcoming conditions for volunteering and possible ways of solving problems related to supporting sports events based on the experience and methodological set;

- Mobilization in accordance with the tasks of accompanying sports events.

Thus, during the process of the preparation for volunteering, the formation of psychological readiness plays a key role. As a result of volunteer activities of sports events, the norms of interaction with various social structures are formed, the experience of communication and behavioral activities in various unpredictable social situations is enriched, moral incentives and intelligence are developed.

References

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