PROMOTION OF PARENT’S COMPETENCE IN INFANT FLOATING

Currently, there are conflicting views around the world regarding infant floating. There is no consensus on the most effective techniques for facilitating infant swimming skills. Infant floating is dominated by a therapeutic and pedagogical approach that ensures parents' involvement in the process. There is no unified methodology for infant floating in Latvia. Furthermore, the number of infant swimming specialists, as well as adequate infrastructure, is insufficient and limited. In the existing situation, it is important to increase parents' competence in infant floating so that parents are able to carry out infant bathing independently. The aim of the study is to develop a model for improving parental competence in infant floating. The main research methods comprised of studying and analysing scientific literature and modelling. The paper is based on 27 scientific literature sources, 22 of them in English, 2 in Latvian and 3 in Russian. The developed model of parental competence improvement in infant floating includes parents' theoretical knowledge of infant floating; independent research on infant floating; water safety; the application of infant floating skills under a specialist’s guidance and the ability to independently use acquired skills without guidance. In the future it will be possible to test the developed model to evaluate its usefulness in promoting parental competence in infant floating, thus ensuring parents' ability to float the infant independently.

PARTICIPATION AND PERFORMANCES IN COMPETITIONS: LATVIAN ORIENTEERING DEVELOPMENT EVIDENCE

Previous efforts to depict sport development opportunities resulted in a sport development metaphor, the participation pyramid (Sotiriadou, Shilbury Quick, 2008).  The base of the sport development metaphor represents the relationship between mass and elite participation (Shilbury, Sotiriadou Green, 2008) and medals won during the Olympic Games (Sotiriadou, De Bosscher, 2013). The most important international competitions may, therefore, best represent overall sport systems (Sparvero, Chalip, Green, 2008), but competition opportunities for athletes are the factor contributing to elite success. The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between mass and elite orienteers’ participation and elite orienteers’ performances at the most important national and international orienteering competitions. Methods: the official most important orienteering national and international competition results from 2001 to 2016 were obtained from the websites of each annual organizing committee, linked to the International Orienteering Federation website and mathematical statistics was conducted. The results confirmed a strong, medium and weak relationship between mass and elite orienteers’ participation and elite orienteers’ performances in the most important national and international orienteering competitions. Orienteers’ movement up the participation pyramid is not automatic.

ANALYSIS ON CLASSIFICATION OF FOOTBALL TECHNIQUE

Football is a situation sport where football players are characterized by a great variety and complexity of activities during the game, both in contact with the opponent and in the immediate vicinity of the opponent, while cooperating with other teammates. Sports scientists and coaches need to find out more about the set of techniques, its diversity and the amount of technique in top level football games in order to guide the optimal planning and implementation of the training process in the technical training of football players. Due to the diversity of techniques used by football players, there are different approaches to the classification of these techniques. However, it is very important to group all techniques according to their common features in order to adequately assess the structure of a football game, its development tendencies and issues. Research aim: to compare and analyse the essence of the classification of football technique and its development tendencies. Research methods: analysis of scientific articles (electronic scientific databases ScienceDirect, Google Scholar), search keywords – football, football technique, classification of football technique. Main results of the research:  two main approaches dominate in the classification of football technique: the technique approach and the game approach. Initially, football technique was mainly grouped by taking into account the player’s actions with or without the ball, the level of difficulty of the technique element, the role of the players and the player’s actions on the spot or in motion. As football develops, football technique is classified by taking into account the effectiveness of its application in specific tactical situations.

PARENTS’ COMPETENCE IN INFANT FLOATING FROM A SPECIALIST PERSPECTIVE

Nowadays activities with the involvement of both children and parents are becoming increasingly popular. There are a variety of such activities, but in this study we focus on infant floating. It is very important how parents feel themselves in such type of lessons and how they are able to perform the exercises with their infants independently and orient themselves in a specific aquatic environment. Parents’ competences in infant floating on the whole are often characterised by their insufficient knowledge, skills and practical abilities in maintaining correct and proper behaviour in the aquatic environment. Therefore, the aim of our study is to explore and analyse the assessment of parents’ competences in infant floating. Based on the research results it would be possible to develop a more accurate model for the enhancement of the parents’ competences required for infant floating and put forward recommendations for improving parents' competences. An assessment survey of the parents' competences in infant floating was conducted from the beginning of September 2017 until the end of October. 33 swimming experts participated voluntarily in the assessment of parents’ competences in infant floating. The mean, standard deviation and mode was used to process the numerical data gathered from the responses. The content and statements put forward in the survey questionnaire regarding parents’ competences in infant floating were based on scientific concepts. The results of the survey of swimming experts indicate that all of the components proposed by the authors that influence parents’ competences in infant floating play a significant role. It could also be surely concluded that at present, the overall level of parental competence in infant floating in the opinion of experts is average. In general, all the surveyed swimming experts are of the opinion that parents should definitely supplement or acquire additional knowledge, skills and abilities in order to increase their level of competences in infant floating in order to be able to effectively apply these competences during independent lessons with their infants.

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION AT HIGH SCHOOL

Students in Latvia have a moderately positive attitude towards organized physical activity at the university, it has been formed in the past and is related to the previous experience in physical education gained at school. To promote student involvement in physical activities and changes in students’ attitude towards physical activity at the university, it is necessary to evaluate their previous experience in physical education acquired at school. The aim of the study is to evaluate of the psychometric properties of the Youth Experiences Survey for Sport (YES-S) (MacDonald et.al., 2012) for students of Latvia. Research methods: The Youth Experiences Survey for Sport (YES-S), Principal component factor analysis. Respondents: 265 students aged from 19 to 24 from four universities of Latvia. Some contradictions were identified between the theoretical basis of the YES-S instrument’s scale and the various criteria that can characterize experience in physical education. As a result, a five-factor structure was developed, which includes 19 items. The factor loads of the other 18 items indicated that these items were not compatible with the theoretical concept of the YES-S.

SPIRITUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION: VIEWS OF THE TEACHING STAFF

Spirituality is an integral part of a holistic education (Miller, 2005) and a holistic development of personality (Chandler et al. 1992; Myers et al. 2008). Although various definitions of spirituality are used, several authors recognize the importance of spirituality in higher education (Dillard, 2006; Love Talbot, 1999; Tisdel, 2001). Christian values have shaped the identity of Latvia since ancient times but the atheistic history of Latvia during the Soviet occupation has affected people's thinking. Therefore, the aim of this research was to find answers to the following questions – how do the teaching staff of the Latvian Academy of Sport Education (LASE) understand spirituality? What are the teaching staff's views on the enhancement of students' spirituality during their study process? What is the teaching staff's attitude regarding Biblical spirituality? This paper is based on a qualitative study (voluntary semi-structured interviews and qualitative content analysis were used) that examined 14 LASE teaching staff (7 women and 7 men, 27-68 years old). Spirituality is perceived as the multifaceted inner life of a person which determines a person's understanding of the universe and connection to God and other people. The common human and family responsibility, leadership and teaching staff responsibility, an institutional environment, and God's work in the hearts of students were mentioned as primary to enhancing spirituality in students. We observed that according to the Biblical understanding of spirituality most of the teaching staff appear to be in a stage of pre-spirituality and not spirituality

Pedagogical Conditions for Organization of Self-regulation Based Study Process

Global trends of modern society are directed to individuals’ active involvement in socializations processes by letting it take a role as sovereign, self-determination orientated subject. To let this process pass as successful as it should, it’s necessary already in the process of learning to devote the favorable conditions. Self-regulation as progression impeller for purposeful personality is significant component as well in professional as in educational process. Self-regulation in closes self-evaluation, judgment formation and self-reactions, which could be developed and mobilized to make changes in individuals’ self-management. Research target is to find out pedagogical conditions for organization of self-regulation based study process, by analyzing self-regulations theoretical aspects and expressions

THE STYLES OF SPECIAL ARTISTRY IN RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS

Rhythmic gymnastics is a high achievement sport that requires athletes to demonstrate maximal abilities of the human body control while performing imaginative and meaningful compositions. With increasing of the technical complexity of the competitive compositions and striving for high results, less attention is paid to performance aesthetics. But at the same technical level during the competition, a decisive role in the gymnasts' performance is given to aesthetics. Patterns in the choice of composition content and gymnasts’ appearance and emotional similarities during performance allow concluding that there is a certain style, which can be defined as a special artistry style in rhythmic gymnastics. The aim of the research is to develop theoretical model of special artistry in rhythmic gymnastics, setting the tasks to determine, classify, structure, describe with determined artistic criteria and visualize with artistical images the special artistry styles. To develop the model the method of scientific and special literature analysis, audiovisual source analysis and modeling method were used. The model is mainly relying on C.G. Jung's theory of human perception of the world through universal symbols and the primary archetypes of the collective unconscious. Since mainly women participate in rhythmic gymnastics, the determination of the special artistry styles was based on the women archetypes of Ancient Greece goddesses according to the psychoanalyst prof. J.S. Bolen. To illustrate the styles more than 400 audiovisual materials were researched. As a result, the theoretical special artistry 32–style model in rhythmic gymnastics with two matrices of opposite style expressions consisting of 16 images each was created.

VISUAL COMMUNICATION GRAPHIC GUIDANCE’S CONTENT OF SPECIAL ARTISTRY STYLE CREATION FOR YOUNG RHYTHMIC GYMNASTS

The artistic evaluation of the competitive composition has a significant effect on the final result in rhythmic gymnastics. An important criterion of artistry is the ability of gymnasts to prove the idea and image of music-accompanied composition dynamically and emotionally. Thus, special artistry like imagery and its style is one of the determining tools for making an aesthetic impression, which accordingly affects the subjective evaluation of the composition. Considering the early specialization in rhythmic gymnastics, it is necessary to develop imagery of gymnasts already at the initial preparatory stage by using visual communication metaphoric graphic guidance. The aim of the research is to create a content of visual communication graphic guidance to develop the perception of special artistry styles for young rhythmic gymnasts (ages 4-6). To achieve the research goal scientific and specialized literature analysis and modelling methods were used. The graphic guidance was developed according to each style of special artistry, based on the visual communication design principles, illustrating the styles in the form of age-appropriate metaphors symbolized by animals, flowers, the environment, and other elements. In total, the content of 32 visual communication graphic guidance was developed.

THE COMPOSITIONAL AND MUSICAL COMPONENTS OF SPECIAL ARTISTRY IN RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS

Rhythmic gymnastics is an Olympic sport. Competitive composition in rhythmic gymnastics should not only meeting the requirements of the physical abilities, but being technically perfect and expressively performed by a gymnast as well. Describing the expressiveness of rhythmic gymnast’s performance, the term “special artistry” is used. Special artistry in rhythmic gymnastics means artistry of compositional content, artistry of rhythmic gymnast, shown by athlete during performance of competitional composition and gymnast’s artistic abilities, influencing aesthetical effect of composition performance. The evaluation of judges at competitions often has a subjective character that is why the actual task of research is to make the expert assessment more objective. Particular investigation in general focuses on possible solutions to make alternative judging. Thus special artistry generally is viewed in 4 components – technical, aesthetical, compositional and musical. This paper is focused only on compositional and musical components of special artistry, headlining creation, build and content of composition, its execution and compositional and musical skills of the gymnast. The aim of the research is to define and to classify competitional composition determining components criteria and exponents of special artistry in rhythmic gymnastics. To develop this research there was used the meta-analysis of scientific literature, using researches of the top rhythmic gymnastics, art and music specialists from one data base, with further creation of thematic typology of elements. In total there were screened 961 sources of which 107 qualified and 25 were chosen for further research. Investigating chosen data sources by the appropriated search terms, as a result 15 criteria and 104 exponents in compositional component, and 5 criteria and 4 exponents in musical component of special artistry in rhythmic gymnastics were determined and classified according to the selected structure of special artistry components in rhythmic gymnastics.