Management of university sport development as an academic issue

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ˑ: 

PhD, Associate Professor N.V. Peshkova1
1Surgut State University, Surgut

 

Keywords: polysubjective development management, university sport, students, sportization, competitive activity.

Introduction. At the present stage of university sport development in our country, the issue of building an effective management system for it at various levels – federal, regional, municipal and university – is becoming more relevant. It should be noted that thanks to management joint activities of different people, structures, organizations, etc. can be organized in such a way that they are not spontaneous and chaotic, but have a purpose and structure.

The research objective was to provide scientific and theoretical substantiation and specification of provisions determining modern approaches to management of the university sport development.

Research results and discussion. In Vladimir Dahl’s dictionary management means “to rule, get underway, set direction; to dispose, to manage, to be the master, the manager of something; to contract works” [2]. At present, the conceptual field of management has expanded substantially, as it is used in a number of academic disciplines, each of them treating it in the context of specifics of the research subject and the concepts that they develop. For example, in economics management is seen as a way of making a profit at the lowest production costs; in jurisprudence it is interpreted from the standpoint of state legal regulation by means of laws. In pedagogy management is understood as “actions to develop solutions, organize, control, regulate the object of management in accordance with the given goal, analyze and summarize based on reliable information” [11, p. 482].

It is important that management is always inseparably connected with consciousness and joint activities of people, it acts as an intermediary between them. Collective efforts when implementing a common cause or attaining a big goal are impossible without appropriate management provided; therefore, it should be noted that it is a public institution by its nature, no less important than the others historically created by people to ensure life-sustaining activity and essential needs satisfaction.

While analyzing the works of various authors dedicated to development management, the category of “development” was found to be univocally interpreted by experts as a process of transition of an object from one state to another, more perfect one, as a result of which the changed object performs its functions more efficiently than before or acquires new ones, and the category of “development management” is interpreted as organized efforts to implement programs and projects that contribute to the achievement of its goals [4].

With regard to university sport, the first definition of the term “pedagogical management of university sports development” is that of L.A. Rappoport, who defines it “as a system of purposeful interactions of academic pedagogical knowledge and competitive activities in order to improve social, spiritual, individual and corporal characteristics of students” [10, p. 4]. In our opinion, the current stage in the university sports development process requires the traditional views on the management in this area being revised. We believe it is necessary to mention the works by V.E. Lepskiy, who in the course of a detailed analysis of the evolution of ideas about management in the context of development of scientific rationality concluded that the paradigms “subject - polysubject” and “human-sized self-developing systems” became dominant in the early XXI century [3]. The author also notes that in the context of postnonclassical rationality, management is understood not as a rigid determination of the systems, but as “flexible forms of governance” – creation of conditions for their development. V.E. Lepskiy qualifies polysubjective management as the main type of management within the above paradigms, indicating that subject-oriented and environmental approaches become basic in this case, defining new requirements for the types, mechanisms and models of management. 

It is important that the key value of polysubjective management consists in the fact that maximum freedom of action is given to both individual and group subjects. Proactive attitude and the possibility of influencing managerial decisions regarding goals and tasks important for all subjects, consistent with their personal and collective interests, can be considered a manifestation of freedom in this case. Moreover, such a collaborative work makes it possible to generate and compare different opinions, ideas, solutions to emerging problems, and therefore finding non-standard solutions, thereby enhancing management efficiency.     

Based on the analysis presented above, we believe that university sport development management process should be based on the following provisions. 

1. University sport is inherently heterogeneous, and this needs to be taken into account when selecting management paradigms and appropriate approaches. We believe, at least three levels of its functioning in the university can be singled out: “mass” (active participants of mass sporting and recreational activities in the university (intra-university competitions)); “professional” (university sports club members, participants of Russian student competitions); “elite” (members of university sport clubs and national teams, participants of the World Summer and Winter Universiades). It should be noted that representation of the above levels of university sport can vary in terms of percentage in educational institutions, which is largely due to the fields of study they have and, consequently, the student body (the total of 1,336 educational institutions in the database of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation available to applicants in 2017 as of 12.06.2017 (522 of them being branches); 89 educational institutions that provide training in the field of “Physical Education and Sports” (8 branches), and 14 institutions under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Sport of the Russian Federation (6 academies, 5 universities and 3 institutes)).        

As practice shows, in non-sporting universities over 90% of students can fulfill themselves only at the mass university sport level due to their physical fitness and technical competency; whereby, unfortunately, according to the results of our studies, more than 50% of applicants do not have any competitive experience [7].

In connection with the above, we believe that changes in the university management should primarily relate to mass university sport. The following provisions show how we see the issue. 

2. Management of university sport development should be polysubjective [6], when each of the participants of the recreational and sports movement will be actively involved in the implementation of various managerial functions as an individual subject or within the framework of activity of collective subjects – “polysubjects” by “assembling” them to solve the assigned tasks at a particular stage of development [9].

3. Development of university sport should be managed with regard to age and psychological characteristics of the students. It is of importance that the crisis of youth is in process at this age, and an individual is choosing his/her own life path. According to V.I. Slobodchikov, E.I. Isaev [12], the psychological basis of the crisis is a comparison of the “idealized self” with the real one, which may not yet be fully appreciated by the individual himself. The authors believe that “the only way to remove this contradiction is by creative transforming activity, during which the subject changes both himself and the world around him” [12, p. 60].

Thus, we think it is necessary to do your best to facilitate the development of personal reflection in students, reflexive self-management and co-management within the framework of collective “polysubjects”.

4. Student self-governance in the field of sport should be backed in the university (at the moment it begins to develop in student sport clubs under the auspices of the Russian Student Sports Clubs Association (RSSCA)). Students’ involvement in the organization of academic fitness and sports activities not only at the stage of fulfillment, but starting with strategy approval and development design, helps develop their self-organization and self-contol abilities. All these qualities are currently in high demand in any sphere of social and professional activity, which, of course, makes the university graduates more competitive in the labour market in the future.  

5. The strategic task of management of the university sports development is to involve maximum number of young people into the sporting lifestyle. We believe, the issue may be solved via sportization of physical education [8], which, using the principles formulated by V.K. Bal’sevich and L.I. Lubysheva [1], makes it possible to create such an environment in the university where every student, regardless of his initial fitness level and competitive experience, will be involved in some way in university sports. It should be noted that with the introduction of the Federal State Educational Standards 3+ (FSES3+) physical education and sport-related disciplines (blocks) should be implemented in the university within the framework of elective courses; so students were given the opportunity to freely choose sport (kind of motor activity), but the set tasks cannot be solved by simply serving the interests and preferences of young people, the key principle of “conversion of adoptable elements of sports training technologies” needs to be observed [1, p. 33].

Hence, it is important to observe the basic principles of athletic training when organizing the training process in groups of students: continuity, consistency of gradual load increase, in-depth specialization, etc.; at the same time, in connection with the modern approaches mentioned above, it is necessary to create conditions to give maximum meaning to performed actions, provide ongoing reflection as part of the interaction process between teachers and students.

6. The university sport development process cannot be managed without an extensive system of sports competitions and fitness and recreational activities organized in the university. Our surveys of first-year students at the beginning of the academic year show that about 45% of applicants had competitive experience [7], i.e. more than a half of newly enrolled students had not yet created for themselves “a psychological connection” with the objective reality of competitive activity, which led to an unformed attitude expressed in actions, reactions and experiences of the individual [5], and in our case was seen in the low involvement and unwillingness to participate in the academic sports and recreational activities, which is one of the indicators of the students’ involvement in university sport.

Conclusion. Current university sport development process in our country requires management approaches relevant to the changes taking place in this area being implemented, the ones that can ensure its purposeful, organized and coordinated with all the interested parties character. In our opinion, taking into account the provisions outlined in the article when designing the management system for university sport development will allow to remove the existing inconsistency in the actions of various structures and to make their interaction polysubjective, which will contribute to the system efficiency. 

References

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 Corresponding author: peshkova_ffk@mail.ru