Professor, Dr.Hab. M.A. Akopova
Professor, Dr.Hab. N.V. Popova
St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University, St. Petersburg

Keywords: health culture, general cultural competence, federal state educational standards (FSES), valueology, questionnaire, humanities students, operationalization, competences.

Introduction. In addition to purely professional competences, the new versions of the federal state educational standards (3+) in all areas of university training contain general cultural and general professional competences, and the process of their formation is often ambiguous and may be problematic for higher education providers. Let us consider the complexities of the formation of some general cultural competences of humanities students that involve understanding of health culture: it is “knowing the system of universal human values” (GCC-1) and the ability “to apply the techniques and means of knowledge, learning and self-control … for health preservation, moral and physical self-improvement” (GCC-8). The first of the wordings implies the concept of health as an axiological category, that is, an important component in the system of universal human values, while in the second health is treated alongside the moral and physical self-improvement of man. It should be noted that there is a deep philosophical meaning in the competences, while the pragmatic aspects of the “transformation of the health related knowledge into specific activity aimed at organizing healthy lifestyle (HLS)” [4] were not duly reflected in them.

The problem of cultivating healthy lifestyle among students, which is actualized mainly through the university subject "Physical Education" is of great scientific interest and is being developed in many longitudinal studies [2-4 et al.]. For example, in the doctoral thesis of O.L. Treshcheva ways of development of organizational and methodological approaches to the preservation of individual students’ health, formation of health culture and development of the need in HLS are considered. Health culture is defined by the author as “a set of motivational and personal, cognitive and activity components in the theory and practice of HLS formation” [4], and the methodology of its formation is based on the activity approach that includes educational and informative, play, labour and creative activities with active training techniques being the priority.

Noting the importance of the valueological direction in the formation of HLS, the researcher notes its interdisciplinary nature that is displayed in the coordination of curricula for physical education, biology, technology and valueology as such if the discipline in question is an elective course at the university. We support the idea of interdisciplinary connections of the valueological nature and believe that valueology can be successfully combined with other disciplines traditional for humanities students, such as pedagogics and psychology, sociology and SOL. It is also of interest that valueologization of the education content is practiced in Altai State Technical University where the program of the elective course “Culture of healthy life of technical university students” has been developed, and the content of the subject of valueology that belongs to the section of social and humanities subjects has been determined [3].

Scientists of SPbSPU also make a large contribution to the process of valueological support of higher education content, in particular O.E. Piskun, the author of the study on the use of continuous monitoring of psychophysical state of students to estimate how they adapt to university studies [2]. Assessing the alarming statistics on the state of health of students (in 2001 only 9% of the graduates of general education institutions of Russia could be considered healthy; prevalence of diseases and functional disorders of students exceeded 50% in 2004) as well as trends of deterioration of their health, the author of the study offers his specially designed pedagogical support of the learning process from the standpoint of the personality-centered approach and developmental education for complex student groups.   

Many years’ experience of the Department of Physical Culture and Sport of SPbSPU also suggests that the unity of the three directions of pedagogical work such as "education”, “up-bringing” and “health promotion” of students is successfully realized in the process of university studies [1]. We would like to note the importance of the currently developed forms of inter-institutional and interdepartmental integration in the project-oriented development of university students that, in particular, was materialized in the activities of the “Politekhnik” sports club aimed at the individualization of physical training of students.  

The purpose of the research was to conduct a comparative analysis of the theoretical aspects of the matter of creating health culture and the results of the survey on the students' attitude to healthy lifestyle.

Materials and methods. Positively assessing the experience of valueological support of vocational education acquired by SPbSPU as a whole, we decided to offer a questionnaire to bachelor linguists of the 4^th year and master’s students of the 5^th-6^th years that completed their physical education in our university.   

The survey involved 59 students: 43 students of the 4^th year and 16 master’s students enrolled in a bachelor degree course of SPbSPU. The respondents had to answer questions concerning conditions created in SPbSPU for physical education (1), degree of overall satisfaction (2), degree of individual interests and preferences being taken into account (3), completeness of received information about HLS (4), rating of the physical education teacher as a healthy lifestyle model (5), provided opportunity to consult on HLS issues (6). In addition, the students evaluated the importance of HLS parameters diagnostics for their subsequent correction (7), the value of valueology as a subject important from the pedagogical standpoint (8), desirability of lectures on valueology for senior students during physical education studies (9) and the need for an exam in valueology for a deeper understanding of the term “health culture” (10). A multiple choice of 5 answers was offered to the students for each question of the questionnaire: in case of full agreement with the proposed statement the students rated it as 100%, in case of absolute disagreement – 0 %, and the intermediate options included 75, 50 and 25%.

Research results and discussion. The findings of the monitoring allow us to state the overall positive attitude of students to physical education classes, a good rating of the university physical education teacher, a sufficient degree of provided opportunities to consult on the HLS issues (values 1, 5 and 6 are over 60%, Table 1). Insufficient consideration of individual preferences of students and completeness of information about HLS received by the respondents (values 2 and 3 are below 50%) are the serious symptoms of the need for changes and need to be thoroughly analyzed We would also like to note the alarming trend of underestimation by the students of the importance of valueology as an important pedagogical subject that contributes to promotion of overall health culture of students (values 8 and 9 are around 40%).

Table 1. Survey results of humanities students, %

For a more objective assessment of the monitoring results we asked the students to anonymously evaluate the level of their health which in case of 49% of respondents was “rather good than bad”, that is, requiring a moderate correction. Only 32% of the survey subjects assessed their health as good, and 14% assessed it as “rather bad than good”. Given the average age of the respondents (21.6 years old), these data, in our opinion, confirm our assumption that additional focus on health culture by introducing, for example, an elective course of valueology would not go amiss.  

In general, based on the obtained data, we can conclude that competences GCC-1 and GCC-8 stated in the FSES with regards to one of the humanities trends, have been formed insufficiently, and that organizational and pedagogical conditions of formation of health culture need to be improved. In view of the very general wording of the mentioned competences in order to develop more concrete ways of their formation it is necessary to conduct a didactic operationalization of the wording and structure their content for the purpose of associating certain aspects of their composition with specific disciplines or thematic modules of selected disciplines.

Conclusion. Proceeding from the analysis of general cultural competences of the federal state educational standards and the survey of humanities students of St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University we can say that:

• the definitions of general cultural competences lack transparency, and to form these competences they should be operationalized for students, i.e. didactically reasonably differentiated into intermediate goals, that can be coupled with specific academic disciplines or thematic modules they involve;
• as shown by the survey of students, health culture is formed insufficiently in this group of students and their health indicators are low;
• it is necessary to develop the valueological support of the educational process in a Humanities Institute, which would include additional valueology-related thematic blocks in various subjects of the curriculum, as well as an elective course of valueology for senior students.

    References

1. Lopatin, M.V. Formirovanie kultury fizicheskogo razvitiya i zanyatiya sportom studencheskoy molodezhi v SPbGPU (Developing the culture of physical development and sports occupations among students in SPbGPU) / M.V. Lopatin, V.P. Sushchenko // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul’tury. – 2014. – № 7. – P. 27–29.
2. Piskun, O.E. Fizicheskaya kul’tura i nepreryvny monitoring psikhofizicheskogo sostoyaniya kak sredstvo adaptatsii studentov k obucheniyu v vuze (Physical culture and continuous monitoring of psychophysical state as a method of adaptation of students to university studies) / O.E. Piskun. – St. Petersburg: Publ. h-se of Polytechnic University, 2012. – 263 P.
3. Sorokina, I.A. Formirovanie kultury zdorov’ya studentov v pedagogicheskom protsesse tekhnicheskogo vuza: avtoref. dis. … kand. ped. nauk (Formation of students' health culture in educational process of technical university: abstract of Ph.D. thesis). - Barnaul, 2004. – 19 P.
4. Treshcheva, O.L. Formirovanie kul’tury zdorov’ya lichnosti v obrazovatel’noy sisteme fizicheskogo vospitaniya: avtoref. dis. … dokt. ped. nauk (Formation of individual health culture in the educational system of physical education: abstract of doctoral thesis (Hab.). - Omsk, 2003. – 51 P.
5. FGOS 45.03.02. Lingvistika. Uroven’ bakalavriata (FSES 45.03.02. Linguistics. Bachelor's programme.) [Electronic resource]: kpfu.ru/docs/F1783467611/45.03.02. Lingvistika.docx.

Corresponding author: akopova@spbstu.ru ; ninavaspo@mail.ru