Relations between students' abilities and attitudes and success in rhythmic gymnastics: Gender specificities

Abstract

Although male or female characteristics are traditionally attributed to some sports, contemporary trends are going in the direction of changing gender inequality in sport and physical education. The aim of this research was to investigate the relationship between motor and musical abilities of students, attitudes towards rhythmic gymnastics, their success in mastering the program contents of the theory and methodology of rhythmic gymnastics (T&M RG) and genders. The sample consisted of 104 subjects, third year students of the Faculty of Sport and Physical Education in Belgrade. Motor and musical abilities were made operational by the scores on tests that are an integral part of the qualifying exam on the FSPE: the test of general motor abilities, the test of specifi c motor abilities with the ball, and the test for assessing the sense of movement and rhythm and checking musicality, and the success in mastering the content of T&M RG by the grade from this subject. Subjects' attitudes were measured by the Connotative differential instrument, which includes three dimensions of an attitude: affective, cognitive and conative. In addition, the data on school achievement of subjects were collected. The results showed that the subjects of female and male gender did not differ in their achievements in the test for assessing the sense of rhythm and movement and musicality, as well as in their achievements in T&M RG. Also, it is shown that this test is predictive for the assessment in the subject T&M RG. Although the attitudes of both genders were very positive, it was shown that women had slightly more positive attitudes than men. The subjects' attitudes towards rhythmic gymnastics were positively correlated with the grade in T&M RG. The results indicated that students of both genders in their future pedagogical practice would be ready to equally successfully apply rhythmic gymnastics as one of the physical education program contents.

Validación y fiabilidad de un test para evaluar la coordinación óculo manual y agilidad en gimnasia rítmica

“…La Gimnasia Rítmica (GR) es un deporte olímpico que require de gran preparación física y mental (Ávila-Carvalho, Klentrou & Lebre, 2011). Al ser un deporte muy técnico con gran exigencia corporal, una de las cualidades más importante es la coordinación espaciotiempo y coordinación óculo manual junto con la agilidad, necesarias para realizar todos los elementos corporales combinados con el manejo de algunos de los aparatos que requiere este disciplina (Τsopani, Dallas, Tasika & Tinto, 2012;Moskovljević, & Orlić, 2012). Según Castañer y Camerino (1991), cualquier movimiento es coordinado cuando se ajusta a los criterios de precisión, eficacia, economía y armonía, todos imprescindibles en este deporte objeto de estudio.…”