Students’ Value Orientations And Attitude To Physical Culture And Sports

Abstract

Physical culture plays a significant role in the professional activities of bachelors and specialists, as their work is associated with a significant concentration of attention, vision, intense intellectual activity and low mobility. Physical exercises combat nervous and physical fatigue, increase working efficiency, and promote health. As a rule, physical education classes for bachelors and specialists are held in the form of recreational activities. Recreation is a state of rest or an activity that combats fatigue and helps to restore working efficiency. Labour and rest are inextricably linked in educational, industrial and other spheres of human activity. A balanced schedule of work and rest allows us to maintain health and high working efficiency for a long time. An important condition for effective rest is the regular alternation of work and rest periods. Switching activities in the process of work from one muscle groups and nerve centres to others accelerates the recovery of a tired muscle group. Switching from one type of work to another, alternating mental activity with light physical labour eliminates the feeling of fatigue and is a kind of rest. Physical culture is one of the factors that form a healthy lifestyle, and students of the Faculty of Physical Culture as a result of their professional activity are supposed to be initially motivated to preserve and maintain health. Value orientations are the major axis of consciousness, provide stability of personality, succession of a certain type of behaviour and activity and are expressed in the focus of needs and interests.

Keywords: Physical culture, sports, value orientations, youth, students, region

Introduction

One of the fundamental elements of forming the development of physical culture in modern society is a conscious orientation of the individual. It is the conscious orientation of each individual that determines the behavior of the individual, his attitude to himself and to others. A special danger and anxiety are caused by the fact that a large number of students lack a positive orientation to sports and physical culture. The majority of students perceive physical culture in a very limited way. Students do not understand the relationship between physical culture and their general culture as future specialists, the state of health, the relationship between successful professional activities in the future and regular physical training today. There is no understanding that modern work requires a significant effort of mental abilities, increased coordination of movements of workers in any field of work, mental and physical strength. After all, each profession dictates its own level of development of psychophysical qualities, its own list of professional and applied skills. Thus, physical culture and sports in the higher education system are essential attributes that bring up such characteristics in the individual that will undoubtedly be useful in his further professional activity. Nowadays in the field of physical education of a student, there has been a change of goal setting, which consists in improving his level of physical training, setting up motivational, motor and intellectual components, forming motor components and skills. Physical education in an educational institution performs an applied function, which is to prepare students for effective professional activities. It should be noted that physical education classes will be the more effective the more clearly young people understand the goals of physical culture and the personal value of such classes. Therefore, it is necessary to search for such methods of organizing physical culture classes, methods of influence that could most effectively ensure the formation of a positive orientation of the individual to physical education. If we analyze the orientation of the individual to physical culture and sports, we can certainly say that the negative orientation to sports increases during the student period. Recently, a large number of experts in the field of physical education raise the question of the need to increase the interest and improve the attitude of students to physical culture and sports.

1.1. When analyzing the data of the Russian Public Opinion Research Center and comparing the opinions of students of various higher educational institutions, it can be concluded that the majority of students have practically not developed an orientation on sports and physical culture. Most students, except for compulsory classes, do not attend physical education classes. It is also a well-known fact that the vast majority of students attend physical education classes because of necessity, rather than their own desire. Girls cease going in for sports especially abruptly after school. Perhaps this is due to the lack of free time, which they begin to spend on homework, communicating with new friends, and so on (Lukin & Yakunin, 2018). The study of students’ responses about sports, that they were engaged in at school or are currently engaged in, revealed the most popular types of motor activity. Most of the young men singled out sports games. During their school years, girls were more often engaged in sports games, and during their studies at the university they began to pay attention to aerobics and its varieties. In the context of the positive dynamics in the attitude of students to physical culture and sports, it can be noted that from year to year, students’ understanding of the need for physical education and sports increases. It is impossible to increase students’ motor activity without forming a genuine interest in physical education classes and a conscious, purposeful desire to engage in additional physical exercises. Taking into account the interest shown by students to any kind of sport would make it possible to increase the effectiveness of physical education. After all, the education system plays an important role in ensuring the level of professional readiness of future specialists, which includes physical fitness, working efficiency, and the development of professional qualities. Of course, physical training does not find direct application in the process of work; this raises doubts about the need to use professionally applied physical culture, but it creates prerequisites for successful professional activity.

1.2. Thus, it is more appropriate to use not only traditional methods and ways of influence, which are often disjointed and poorly take into account the individual characteristics of students, but also to use a complete system of specific forms of organization of classes and ways of influence that correspond the humanistic principle of "encourage, not compel" and, thereby, increase the interest of students in the activities that their teacher directs them to (Becker, 2003). After all, physical activity of a student develops intellectual abilities, causes positive emotional experiences (self-confidence, a sense of collectivism, joy for success), accelerates the process of adaptation, encourages self-control in any life situations, increases overall vitality and working efficiency, contributes to the formation of objective self-esteem, encourages self-education.

Problem Statement

To improve the process of physical education in higher education institutions, it is necessary to study the value orientations of modern students and their attitude to physical culture and sports. During 2020, sociological surveys of students of various state universities were conducted on these issues (Bogel & Upham, 2018).

2.1. The analysis of the results of these surveys showed that the majority of students have a limited perception of physical culture; they do not understand the relationship between the general culture of the specialist and his physical culture, health status, regularity of attending physical education classes and successful professional activities in the future. Currently, the society is increasing the requirements for the health and physical fitness of future specialists. At the same time, up to 90% of students have significant health abnormalities (Bryman, 2012).

2.2. In this regard, it is of particular importance to work with students to create the need for regular physical training and sports in order to maintain a high level of working efficiency and a healthy lifestyle. This requires collecting information on the life, activities and interests of young people.

Research Questions

The interpretation of the concept of ‘value orientations’ is multifaceted; it is a capacious and important concept for life. One of the most significant values in any of the existing systems is human health. For example, in the well-known system of values of M. Rokeach, health takes the third place in the series of terminal values. It is important to note that according to the results of the studies of value orientations of both the adult population and students, described in research works, health takes a leading place (Grigoriev et al., 2019).

Studying the health problems of students can also be included in the axiological context, namely, to consider the values of health in the sphere of students’ thinking, to identify their motivation for a healthy lifestyle, paying attention to the characteristics of their life in modern, changed conditions. There is reason to assume that social transformations can become one of the factors of changes in the value orientations of modern students. These conditions create a new context for the study of health problems, identifying their place in the value system of students.

Students are a part of the youth, representing the future elite of society, its intellectual potential, which will influence the formation of value orientations of social communities. Thus, the study of this group is socially significant. However, the approach to research should be differentiated, since students of different universities (different areas of study) will be involved in different industry groups or fields of activity, represent technical or creative elite (Povarnitsyn, 2004).

This approach allows us to specify the characteristics of student groups, as opposed to simply averaging and extrapolating the results of the study of students as a whole. This should ensure the development of specific mechanisms for influencing students in terms of their areas of study and place of residence.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the research is to study the value of physical culture and sports in the youth student environment.

Research Methods

Our research (a questionnaire and interviews) was aimed at identifying the value-motivational characteristics of students in the formation of their own health.

Findings

We carried out a sociological study of modern students of higher educational institutions of the Far Eastern Federal district, namely Far Eastern State Transport University, Sholom-Aleichem Priamursky State University, Amur State University, Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service.

In the course of the research, we used questionnaires to clarify the attitude of students to the values of a healthy lifestyle, forms of leisure activities. 500 students, aged 17-24, took part in the online survey, with the ratio of girls and boys among the respondents being 2:1. The survey of students has revealed that the main values of a healthy lifestyle are recognized by the overwhelming majority of students, at least in verbal terms.

According to the analysis of the data presented in Table 1, we can conclude that the absolute majority of students (more than 70%) attach great importance to the first group of answers (1 - 11). These are mainly personal qualities that contribute to success in future work, as well as those related to their own health and a successful family life. The second group of values mostly consists of such responses as ‘huge value’ (50-70%) and a sufficiently high number of answers ‘low value’ (30-40%). These values are indicated in Table 1 by numbers 12 - 17. The third group of values includes those in which the answers ‘low value’ prevail (18-23). Thus, it is groups 2 and 3 that contain the values of maintaining a healthy lifestyle by means of physical education. That is, placing a premium on health in their life values, many students are quite passive about one of the most effective means of improving and maintaining it. This is probably due to the low level of education in the field of physical culture, and in this regard, the lack of motivation to go in for sports. The results of the survey on the assessment of factors affecting a healthy lifestyle showed that the majority of students evaluate a healthy lifestyle as a multi-factor indicator. At the same time, the majority of respondents believe that drug use (99.2%), environmental pollution (98.4%), Smoking (97.6%), alcohol abuse (95.9%), and lack of physical activity (92.6%) negatively affect a healthy lifestyle. These indicators prove that the propaganda campaign related to a healthy lifestyle carried out at the university is rather highly efficient. More than half of the respondents believe that conflicts with other people (81%), stressful work and rest (71.9%), moral (58.7%) and material (50.5%) punishment also negatively affect a healthy lifestyle. Among the factors that positively affect a healthy lifestyle, students note proper nutrition (87.6%), massage (84.3%), bath or sauna (83.5%), cold training (81%), regular medical examinations (61.2%), individual responsibility for health (60.3%).

Collective responsibility for health is recognized by 47.9% of respondents, while the rest reject collective intervention in this issue.

The study of forms of students’ leisure activities allowed us to divide them into three groups, namely the most common forms of leisure, used constantly, regularly or often by the majority of students (in total, more than 60% of responses); common forms of leisure, used constantly, regularly or often (40-60% of respondents); rarely used forms of leisure (the sum of responses ‘rarely or practically not used’ is at least 60%).

These data indicate that the majority of students’ leisure is oriented towards the consumption of so-called ‘mass culture’, namely listening to audio recordings, radio (90.9%), watching television programs, videos (71.9%).

Physical education, sports, and tourism are among the most common forms of leisure; 66.9% of students are engaged in these activities constantly, regularly, or frequently. This is a fairly high indicator, proving a certain efficiency of the University work in promoting physical education and sports (Kazantsev et al., 2010).

However, it is necessary to promote physical education and sports among students more actively in order to compensate for the ways of spending leisure time with elements of physical inactivity (watching programs, listening to recordings, passive recreation, playing computer games, etc.). 64.4% of respondents prefer another form of active leisure, i.e. parties, discos.

At the same time, a fairly large number of students use their leisure time to form the professional culture of the future specialist (participation in public life – 47.9%; studying professional books, doing research – 38%; attending additional lectures and classes – 22.3%). However, it is necessary to develop the creativity of students, forms of leisure that are opposed to ‘mass culture’ and contribute to the development of the general culture of future specialists.

Conclusion

Thus, the study allows us to draw the following conclusions:

1. We need to take special measures to promote physical culture as one of the most effective means of improving and maintaining health. Such work should be carried out primarily through the practical involvement of students in sports activities. This is possible, for example, by taking such measures as finding forms of classes and competitions that allow each student to try to realize his own needs for physical activity, conducting classes and competitions in the maximum number of sports.

2. It is necessary to explain to students the relationship of physical education with the main objects of care for physical condition, priority values of a healthy lifestyle (Silvia, 2007). This will make it possible to form the need to do physical exercises throughout the rest of life, to realize that it is necessary in further professional activity as a means of maintaining high working efficiency.

3. Formation of motivation to go in for sports is possible only by improving the education of students in practical issues of using various means and methods of maintaining health (Bogomaz, 2000), understanding that physical culture is an integral part of the general culture of a modern specialist.

In the field of physical culture, values according to the quality criterion can be presented as:

- material (conditions of training, quality of sports equipment, benefits from society);

- physical (health, physique, motor skills and abilities, physical qualities, physical fitness) (Rodriguez-Fernandez, 2021);

- social and psychological (recreation, entertainment, pleasure, hard work, team behavior skills, sense of duty, honor, conscience, nobility, means of education and socialization, records, victories, traditions);

- psychological (emotional experiences, character traits, personality traits and qualities, creative inclinations);

- cultural (perception, self-affirmation, self-esteem, aesthetic and moral qualities, communication, authority).

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