Associate Professor, PhD A.V. Kozlov
Professor, Dr.Hab. V.M. Shulyatev
E.S. Popova
People's Friendship University of Russia, Moscow

Keywords: globally oriented university, internationalization of education, issues of physical education in higher education institutions, sports abroad, physical education and sports activities of university. students. 

Introduction. The entry of Russia into the world educational space brings new requirements to the system of higher education, quality of vocational training, which in turn leads to significant changes in the theory of pedagogics of higher education. The quality of teaching in a university is assessed through annual rankings of higher education institutions. According to the National University Rankings in 2014/15, the top 5 universities in Russia include the following: Lomonosov Moscow State University, National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, National Research University MIPT, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) [6].

The sector of university international activities is one of the efficiency criteria and is determined by the number of international students studying at the university. Thus, the total number of university students and other learners taking courses at foreign educational institutions constituted: 1.65 million people in 2001, 1.79 million people in 2002, 2.6 million people in 2006, over 3 million people in 2010 and up to 8 million people are expected to study abroad by 2025 [4].

In the modern context, higher education in Russia is therefore being fundamentally reformed in order to develop university educational services focused on international students from around the world.

Today, in terms of integration of Russian universities to the world educational space, the focal point in pedagogics is the competency building approach, which is the foundation for developing the content of higher education curricula, since it introduces innovative attainments in theory and practice of professional activities to the students' competences being formed.

In terms of organization, content and teaching techniques in university physical education, the development of new educational services based on the competency building approach is of particular interest. Owing to the elective component of educational standards and curricula one can improve the quality of educational services through fundamental changes of the student’s attitude towards the academic discipline; thus, elective curriculum is an essential factor for introduction and implementation of the competency building approach.

However, the content and components of the curriculum are developed mostly with regard to the interests of the university departments, its activities and professional competences of the teaching personnel, while the students’ needs, abilities, past experience in physical education and sports, as well as career and vocation preferences are often overlooked. Moreover, not all countries include the discipline "Physical Education" in the list of required university courses. In this connection, many international students find it difficult to adjust to the educational environment in the Russian higher education institutions.

Therefore, the particular contradictions emerge: on the one hand, the stiff competition can be observed in the market of educational services, the number of foreign students studying in the Russian universities is increasing and, again, there is an obvious need for the international students’ socialization and adjustment to living conditions and educational environment of the Russian universities; on the other hand, the educational system lacks the practically significant algorithms of design of physical educational services in the Russian higher education institutions equally as the scientifically-grounded educational software content for the discipline "Physical Education" designed for the international students.

Objective of the study was to provide justification for the choice of physical education and sports activities in terms of development of the "Physical Education" curriculum in a globally oriented university.

Methods and structure of the study. The study was conducted in Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (Moscow).

We believe it is only possible to improve the quality of educational services in a statistically average university with a large number of international students (Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia enrolls students from over 150 countries), if the content of the physical education curriculum is developed in line with the science-based standards and principles and comprises the traditional Russian physical education and sports activities and that typical of the other countries. Such a strategy will enable students to: firstly, follow their own individual educational trajectory in the discipline "Physical Education" chosen in view of their school experience in physical education and sports; secondly, determine the interconnection and integrity of academic and non-academic physical education activities regarding the establishment of their general culture competencies; thirdly, adjust and socialize to the living and educational environments in Russia.

Results and discussion. At the beginning of the study, we have analyzed the Internet resources and scholarly literature in order to reveal the popularity of sports in various countries [1, 5, 7]. The conducted analysis showed the following results:

1. A greater variety of sports is observed in the countries with highly developed economies as opposed to the situation with the sport industry in less economically developed countries.
2. The list of the most popular sports (top sports in the analyzed countries) includes football, track-and-field athletics, basketball, volleyball, boxing, hockey, tennis, swimming, cycle sport and weightlifting.
3. The sports popular in the region are (in descending order): football, track-and-field athletics, tennis, basketball and volleyball in the countries of South-West Asia; football, track-and-field athletics, tennis, basketball and boxing in the countries of South and South East Asia; football, track-and-field athletics, basketball, boxing and volleyball in the African countries; football, tennis, volleyball, track-and-field athletics and basketball in the countries of South America; football, track-and-field athletics, basketball, volleyball and boxing in the countries of North America; football, track-and-field athletics, basketball, volleyball and chess in Europe.
4. Sports do not vary significantly in the former colonies (e.g. the Republic of Chad, Cameroon, etc.); today, the colonial sports are composed of those introduced by the conquering nations.
5. Only the industrialized countries include national sports to the state physical education system: American football and baseball in the USA; sumo wrestling and karate in Japan; cricket in the UK, and so on. At the same time, the World Sports Community has insufficient information regarding some national sports, for instance, that in the African countries.
6. Popularity and development of sports depend on the country's geographic position: thus, ice hockey is the national sport in Canada, surfing in Australia, skiing in Norway, etc.

We have analyzed the scientific literature and determined the types of physical education and sports activities that are included in the "Physical Education" curricula of general education schools in the countries where the international students participating in the study come from.

As seen from the data in Table 1 illustrating the rating of physical education and sport activities in secondary schools worldwide, sport games, track-and-field athletics and gymnastics prevail in school physical education in different regions of the world. If combined, these three types of activities constitute 76 percent of the content of the physical education curriculum in secondary school [2, 5].

Table 1. Rating of physical education and sport activities in secondary school, %

Note: Table presents the sports included in physical education curricula in secondary schools, %.

Then, we conducted social research, involving over 1000 international full-time students from different faculties of Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia; the research objective was to reveal the most popular sports in the home countries of the respondents. The participating students were asked about the strong points of particular sports and what they like in these sports; about the choice of sports specialization during Physical Education lessons; about the reasons for choosing particular sports and so on. In the end of the study, we analyzed the statistical data on the students’ choice of the sports specialization type during Physical Education lessons from 2010/11 academic year onwards (see Fig. 1). 

Fig. 1. The RUDN University students’ choice of sport specialization during physical education lessons, %

The study results showed that foreign students consider the following sports to be the most preferable: 25.2 percent out of the total number of respondents chose football, 19.9 percent – volleyball, 16.6 percent – basketball, 14.2 percent – aerobics, 12.3 percent – athletic gymnastics, 11.8 percent – badminton [3].

Conclusions. Development of the content of the "Physical Education" curriculum focused on international students implies consideration of the way how students perceive physical education and sports; such a concept is often based on the popular sports that are traditional in their home countries.

In the course of our study we have discovered the following characteristic trends: in contrast to less economically developed countries, there is a greater variety of sports in the countries with highly developed economies; sports do not vary significantly in the former colonies; national sports are included in the state Physical Education system mainly in the industrialized countries; the World Sports Community has insufficient information about national sports in certain regions, for example, in African countries; the most popular sports are football, volleyball, basketball, track-and-field athletics, boxing, athletic gymnastics and aerobics.

Introduction of sport games, track-and-field athletics, boxing, gymnastics and its variations to the elective course of the "Physical Education" curriculum contributes to a considerable increase of students’ activity during classes, diversifies the students’ interests during academic and non-academic activities and, consequently, increases the quality of educational services in a statistically average university with a large number of international students. 

References

1. Vse o sporte. Spravochnik (All about sport. Directory) / Comp. by V.V. Kukushkin. P. 3. 2nd ed.; sup. – Moscow: Fizkul'tura i sport. – 1978. – 288 p.
2. Gus'kov S.I. Fizicheskoe vospitanie i sport v shkolah zarubezhnykh stran (Physical education and sport in schools overseas) / S.I. Gus'kov, A.P. Zotov. – Moscow: Poligrafservis, 2002. – 217 p.
3. Pobyvanets V.S. Fizicheskaya kul'tura i sport kak sredstvo internatsionalizatsii studencheskoy zhizni v vuze (Physical education and sport in internationalization of student university activities) / V.S. Pobyvanets // Obrazovatel'naya i ozdorovitel'naya rol' fizicheskoy kul'tury i sporta v vuze: Sb. st. III Mezhdunar. nauch.-prakt. konf (Educational and recreational value of physical education and sport in higher education: Proc. of the III International. research-practical conf. Moscow, January 27-28. 2010. – Moscow: People's Friendship University of Russia, 2010. – 383 p. – P. 276–284
4. Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/education-at-a-glance-2014_eag-20...
5. Sports around the world: history, culture, and practice / John Nauright, Charles Parrish. Volume 1: General Topics, Africa. Asia, Middle East, and Oceania. — by ABC-CLIO. — 2012. — 474 p.
6. http://5top100.ru
7. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Категория:Спорт_по_странам

Corresponding author: alexkozlov56@mail.ru

Abstract
The entry of Russia into the world educational space brings new requirements to the system of higher education, quality of vocational training, which in turn leads to big changes in the theory of pedagogics of higher education.
The article concerns the problems of sport education in Russian classical universities, development of ideas of modernization of the higher physical education system based on its internationalization, identification of major sports and sport activities of students in different countries around the world, planning the content of Physical Education lessons.
When developing the science-based "Physical Education" curriculum for foreign students, one is to take into account how foreign students understand physical education and sport, which often relies on the sports popular in their country.