Associate Professor, PhD G.A. Kuzmenko
Moscow State Pedagogical University (MSPU), Moscow

Keywords: adolescent, coach, sporting activity, intelligence models, intellectual problems, educational demand.

Background. The initial and advanced training stages in the junior athletic training system is designed to offer efficient solutions for the educational, cultural and training tasks, although the process success is ensured by the adequate involvement of intellectual abilities required to respond to the situations faced in the process. Studies of the intellectual abilities and content of the intellectual qualities mobilized in these processes are designed, on the one hand, within the frame of external conditions of the specific athletic activity built up in line with the coach’s notions on the role of intellectual training for the junior athlete’s training and competitive process success; and, on the other hand, on the individual attitudes of the adolescent athlete to the solvability of the problems arising in the athletic training process by their personal intellectual toolkits.

Objective of the study was to use a structural analysis of the intellectual challenges to outline the intellectual demands of junior athletes for excellence and success in their vocational sports.

Methods and structure of the study. Subject to the study were adolescent athletes (n=500) and coaches. (n=104) representing 18 sport disciplines. We performed an educational analysis of the intellectual challenges faced by the junior athletes in the training process and identified their intellectual demands motivated by the need to optimise the athletic training process parameters in terms of the interpersonal relationship and environmental effects/ counter-effects within the frame of the available resource and with due consideration for the individual attitudes and opinions of the adolescent athletes and their coaches: see Table 1.

Table 1. Intellectual challenges faced in the adolescent athletic training process and the relevant educational demands versus intelligence models

Study results and discussion. Our comparative analysis of the process problems reported by the adolescent athletes made it possible to outline some logics including minor sport-specific differences (see Table 2). Information values of the adolescent athlete’s opinions and the actual demands were substantiated by the coaches’ opinions on the actual needs for education and the relevant skills- and abilities- improvement initiatives to mobilize the trainees’ intellectual resources for success in the sport careers.

Choices indicative of the junior athletes’ demands for self-improvement based on the (self) cultivation of intellectual abilities gave the means to identify the scopes of intellectual demands of the adolescent subjects beyond the frame of the regular cognitive functionality improvement process; and the professional motivations of the coaches to improve their own professional skills in the intellectual training domain.

Results of the analysis showed the dominance of the higher choice parameters of the intelligence manifestation contexts by the coaches that may be explained by their professional knowledge of the combined sport reserve training system content and competitively important qualities in the relevant sports; albeit there were a few points underestimated by the coaches as highlighted hereunder in Table 2. Given on Figure 1 are the adolescent athletes and coaches’ attitudes survey data.

Table 2. Content of the intellectual ability improvement demands by the adolescent athletes versus coaches in the context of the training process challenges

Note: Group 1: football, basketball, handball, ice hockey; Group 2: Greco-Roman wrestling, sambo, judo, karate; Group 3: badminton, tennis; Group 4: orienteering; Group 5: swimming, ski racing, track events; Group 6: field events (jumping, throwing); Group 7: equestrian sport; Group 8: ballroom dancing; cheerleading; TPC tough physical contacts with the opponent; PC physical contacts with the opponent; MPC modest physical contacts with the opponent; NPC no physical contacts with the opponent. Highlighted are the areas of the adolescent athletes’ intellectual demands being higher than those of their coaches.

The biological determinants of the psychomotor activity and the technological and emotional intelligence (very important in the sport disciplines that imply TPC - tough physical contacts with the opponent) were found to be underestimated by the coaches for the following reasons: 1) failure to understand the role of the relevant intellectual components for success of the adolescent athlete in pre-season and regular season; 2) low technological background giving no means to design and implement the required intellectual conditioning and training subsystem in the junior athletes’ training process.

It may be pertinent to note the fact of high appreciation of the role of intellectual training for excellence and success in the relevant sport disciplines that imply virtually no physical contacts with the opponent (see Table 2, Groups 7, 8) that show higher demands for improvement of the informational, motivational, emotional and social intelligence for their synergic effect. In some cases, both subjects for the study were equally and fully supportive of the need to cultivate the relevant intelligence models (100/100) i.e. fully understanding its role and importance for success.

We intentionally included in the study the athletes and coaches from equestrian sport to demonstrate the degrees of social and emotional maturity of these subjects that fully appreciate the role of the intellectual resource mobilizing training to secure harmonized and timed responses and due performance correction programs to excel the rider’s interaction with the horse.

At the same time, the low demand rates of some adolescents may be indicative of their low competency and intellectual fitness for the relevant sport disciplines; since the low adolescent motivations always discourage the subjects and they fail to develop a conscientious determination for success in the sport by means of intellectual training and conditioning among other things.

Figure 1. Choice ranges (%) for the intelligence models important for success in the vocational sport discipline for the adolescent athletes (1A) and coaches (1B); with fields 1-10 referring to the intelligence models and intellectual demands by the adolescent athletes; and rows 1-8 referring to the sport disciplines as per Table 2.

The athlete’s to coach’s opinion ratio (see highlighted areas in Table 2) may be interpreted as an even more informative criterion that helps pinpoint some specific problems in terms of the adolescents finding some intellectual quality more important for them; whilst their coaches tend to underestimate its role and potential for success in the training activity. It should be noted that the coaches’ choices (%) of the technological intelligence were notably lower than those of the athletes, and this fact may be due to the coaches being limited by their professional process planning and design logics, regulations and problems including those related to the intellectual training component and more focused on the current challenges faced in the training process.

Conclusion. The study data and analyses gave us grounds to arrive to the following findings:

- The adolescent athletes showed highly different educational demands for success in the vocational sport disciplines by means of the wide range of intellectual training tools;

- The coaches showed a wide range of attitudes to the intellectual problems and solutions with concern to different intelligence models and their roles;

- We found an objectively grounded hierarchy of competitively important qualities determined, among other things, by professional/ mental/ sport-specific training and excellence programs; and, at the same time, the importance of the intelligence-model-specific intellectual training and conditioning is still largely underestimated as verified by the ratings of the sport-important intelligence models by the coaches that may be due to their still low competency in the junior athletes’ intellectual training domain.

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Corresponding author: kuzmenkoga2010@yandex.ru,

Abstract

The study was designed to explore the intellectual problems adolescents face in their athletic training and competitive activity and spell out their intellectual training demands with an emphasis on the educational needs and with account of the types and manifestations of intellectual qualities of special importance for successful self-fulfilment in vocational sports. Subject to the study were 500 adolescent athletes aged 13-15 years and 104 coaches representing 18 sport disciplines. The study data and analyses highlighted the range of the adolescents’ educational needs beyond the frame of the regular cognitive functions, plus the professional interests of the coaches in terms of their professional skills improvement in the junior athletes’ intellectual training technologies. Most of the respondents do believe that in the athletic training process high priority must be given to the biological determinants of intelligence and individual cognitive styles to build up cognitive flexibility and cognitive functionality, plus the situation-beneficial domains of theoretical, informational, technological, practical, body-control, motivational (intra-personal), emotional and social domains of intelligence. Coaches, in contrast to the junior athletes, tend to underestimate the role of biological determinants of intelligence including psychomotor, technological and emotional intelligence models, and this is interpreted as indicative of the adolescents’ educational needs being still unsatisfied.