Original article

Initial Education of Physical Culture Professionals toward a Ludic Approach in the Program Educate your Child

0000-0002-6938-2225Alberto Barroso Arzuaga^{1  *} 

¹Universidad de Universidad de Oriente. Facultad de Cultura Física. Sede Mella. Santiago de Cuba, Cuba.

ABSTRACT

Introduction:

The Preparation of Physical Culture students is necessary to facilitate the education of children and the acquisition of ludic skills and capacities, and offer proper family counseling as part of the Program Educate your Child.

Aim:

To design pedagogic actions based on a ludic approach for Physical Culture students, as part of the Program Educate your Child.

Materials and methods:

The population of the sample consisted of 41 fourth-year students in the Physical Culture Bachelor Degree, five teachers of the Department of Physical Education Practice, with more than five years of experience, and five promoters of the Program Educate your Child. The theoretical methods used were analysis-synthesis and systemic-structural for action design; the empirical method was observation.

Results:

Overall, the actions implemented will enable Physical Culture to improve student preparedness to use a ludic approach in the implementation of Program Educate your Child.

Conclusions:

The pedagogical actions favor a ludic-based training for future work as a program’s promoter, whose implementation was considered feasible and was evaluated as satisfactory.

Key words: Initial education; ludic activity; Physical Culture; ludic approach.

INTRODUCTION

Among the achievements of the Cuban revolution is the advancement of higher education, in programs like Physical Culture, including the professionals responsible for preschool education, who play a fundamental role in forming a child’s personality through institutions for the children, like day-care centers, which use a general program. Starting in 1992, the implementation of the Social Program of Educational Assistance for children of those ages who did not attend proper institutions with an intersectoral character for the benefit of communities, and use the educational potentialities of families to perform encouraging actions in favor of child development at home.

According to ^{González Domínguez, N. Y., Carnero Sánchez, M. & Navarrete Pita, Y. (2021)}, “Education is one of the processes that play a fundamental role as a guide for development”.

This assertion is valid for the preparation of Physical Culture students to facilitate the education of children and the acquisition of ludic skills and capacities, and offer proper family counseling as part of the Program Educate your Child.

In that sense, Gallego, Vargas, Peláez, Arroyavey Rodríguez (2020) highlighted the relevance of generating and providing knowledge and innovative, creative, and ludic methods that can be integrated into teaching at the early stages. These must consider the child’s needs and awaken their interest. Games must acquire a new significance as a means to access knowledge and skills. Y. J. P., Nieto, N.T.E., ^{Marroquín, F.M.P., & López, A. L. E. (2022)}, cited by Marroquin.

Therefore, the preparation of the Physical Culture professionals is currently a challenge, and one of the main objectives is to develop and optimize the organization and the Program Educate your Child, requiring greater efficacy and efficiency.

The need for a professional with theoretical and practical knowledge, whose self-preparedness enables the development of methods, ways, and procedures that ensure the establishment of ludic goals through the physical activity, is an essential component for community work, especially with children, so that they can encourage cooperation with others.

Quite a few studies of preschool education nationally and internationally with a game approach have been conducted, particularly by Villalón, G. (1998 and 2003), and others. They have stressed the significance of ludic activities in professional performance.

However, professionals are not always prepared to work with these age groups through games as the ideal way for children to know their world, participate in the complex system of relationships, and grow. Although it has values, by imitating expressions, spaces, engagement, and traditions, thus confirming the UNESCO statements related to the need to declare the right of children to games as a call of attention for humanity to protect children.

Despite research done in this direction, the work of the Physical Culture professional to implement a ludic approach in the early education of children associated with physical activity of children as part of the Program Educate your Child, with high achievement levels, falls short.

The study conducted and the collection of information permitted the identification of several shortcomings in Physical Culture students in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, linked to the lack of proper preparedness throughout their programs for physical activity works, in the Program Educate your Child.

• Insufficient orientation for ludic work. Lack of proper preparedness of Physical Culture teachers to prepare their students for future work in the implementation of Program Educate your Child.

The education process is directed to achieving potentialities and optimum results during education, which are present in student activities. Education encourages students to recognize themselves as professionals, particularly in ludic activities associated with pre-school teaching. Professional education consists of teaching to train, prepare, and form students for their future performance as professionals. In that sense, Cárdenas (2019), cited by ^{Alegría, R. V., Ramírez, J. V., & Alarcón, L. V., 2022)}, said

“Professional education is the sum of ways of learning in a systematic manner, which is intended to form professionals within the social and working contexts, and in their jobs.

According to ^{Zúñiga Calzadilla, G., & Daley Poyato, M. V., 2022)}, the methodological aspects of pedagogical professional education are focused on the problematization of curricular contents as essential links that determine the logical acquisition and development of pedagogical professional skills planning, organizing, managing, and controlling the teaching-learning process. It has been conceived from theoretical and conceptual aspects that define the degree studies, and respond to the profession.

Therefore, university student education is still a problem that requires further research, an invaluable and significant process in education, which will permit students to acknowledge themselves as true educators gifted with values, theoretical-practical knowledge, and true professional pedagogic skills that will contribute positively to their teaching performance.

According to ^{Salazar Hurtado, A., Echavarría, J. C., & Pulido, S. M., 2021)},

In the early education of a particular social group there is an academic culture associated with the language plane, action, feeling, where the educational institution, teachers, the curriculum, and other dynamics intervene, becoming a part of it.

Early education is the main element to acquire knowledge, conduct education, and provide vocational counseling as educators. It is the space where pedagogic, theoretical, and practical skills are acquired, along with values and all the relevant, quality, and category aspects needed for their labor as educators.

The education of future Physical Culture professionals is currently a challenge, and one of the main objectives is to develop and optimize the organization. Hence, professional training in Physical Culture is necessary to achieve greater efficacy and efficiency in all the physical-recreational, and sports activities.

It is a tool that encourages students to become the key actors of today, forcing new ways of looking at the routine of the profession and its implementation. It must look to where the profession evolves. It entails the possibility of reviewing the implicit traditions or arguments (conscious or unconscious) used to validate a particular practice.

Therefore, in this early educational process, the association with practice, approaching the future performances in real scenarios, is necessary. This association is one of the conditions to acquire learning solidly and stably, and to develop, bearing a commitment, knowledge, and responsibility that must be part of the performance. Consequently, Educate your Child is a community educational program.

Accordingly, the Physical Culture graduates inserted in the program must grow as a professional to raise self-esteem, emotional safety, and interest, as well as their communicative and intellectual capacities, testing their potentialities, and become a higher education teachers.

To ^{Díaz, G. & Sampayo, H., 2021)}:

“All the branches of initial professional education share elements directed to integrated education, though each specialty has particular profiles with elements that characterize the graduates from different degrees, and their functions in the performance context “.

The essential purpose of the early education process of students at the University of Physical Culture Sciences and Sports is to contribute to such formation based on comprehensive physical education of the student’s personality. To accomplish integration and education, it is necessary to consider the multidimensional character of the process and the pedagogic implications of the profession within this context.

Accomplishing the initial education with an integrated approach requires a pedagogic structure with a ludic perspective to use games in preschool education. It can adopt several forms, so it can be said that without a doubt, games move through whole cultures and the socioeconomic life of any society.

Therefore, the assertions of ^{Gutiérrez, J; Gutiérrez, C & Gutiérrez, J., 2018)}: “A ludic approach consists of tools that help make teaching an interactive activity in the class “, are consistent.

This is a valid idea related to university student education in the area of Physical Culture, which collaborates with their education, their professional performance as graduates, and their performance in ludic activities or games since it offers knowledge and socialization of the contents learned in different areas of performance.

The concept of ludic is as broad as complex; it refers to the needs of humans to communicate, feel, express, and produce a series of emotions oriented to entertainment, joy, and amusement, that make people laugh, enjoy themselves, scream, and even cry, through a true source of emotions.

Espinoza & Martínez, (2018), cited by ^{Daza - Mejía, M. M., Fuentes - Merello, A.D., Anchundia - Arboleda, C. C., & Casquete- Muñoz, R.B., 2022)}:

the ludic activities can capture the attention and offer excellent support during the first years of life, particularly in elementary skill development, such as walking, jumping, rolling, pushing or pulling, talking, etc.

^{Betancourt, C. M., Torres, P. P., & Cano, C. A. G., 2017)}

said that “ludic activities offer several benefits in a learning setting, and it leads to active learning, since it involves emotions, generates pleasure, creative ideas, and encourages challenges and changes. “

^{Vera, S. E. P., 2018)} noted that

“every healthy game or ludic activity is instructional, it helps students to start thinking and act amidst a changing situation. The value of ludic activities for education is precisely the fact that they combine different optimum elements of teaching organization: participation, collectivism, entertainment, creativity, competition, and the achievement of results under difficult situations”.

^{Jiménez-Tamayo, Rosa, J., Ludeña - Jaramillo, L.F., & Medina-León, C. S (2022}):

claimed that “ludic activities (traditional games) practiced within the educational spaces are relevant, since they create a favorable environment so that students can establish mutual relationships, under a pleasant and productive setting. Accordingly, interpersonal relationships and social relations are strengthened, which at the cognitive level, promote sound relationships”.

Games are the most relevant activity for pre-school age; its variants (imitation, movements, board, didactic, and particularly role games, also known as dramatizing) make children feel happiness, pleasure, and emotional satisfaction and increase knowledge, and representations, motivations, and interests. It contributes to the formation of attitudes, qualities, as well as overall development and personal growth.

Bruner, (1984), cited by ^{Preciado, M.P.U., Atoche, C. B., Cedeño, B.J.B., Torres, C.V.G., Santana & Unuzungo, G.D. F., 2022)}:

“Games as activities are a fundamental element to enhance socializing, they permit humans, particularly children, to show their qualities and skills to understand, analyze, and especially, to consider relationship criteria which help develop their attitudes peacefully and harmoniously, pursuing a culture of peace”.

^{García, R., Pozo, A., Casa, E., & Anangono, P., 2020)}

Noted that “ludic activities are used as a technique that helps students develop creativity and interest, to enhance their problem-solving capacities. In addition to knowledge acquisition, the implementation of this strategy develops the learner’s creative capacity and establishes communicative relationships.

Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to design pedagogic actions based on a ludic approach for Physical Culture students, as part of the Program Educate your Child.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The population of this study was made of 4^th year Physical Culture regular students in the Municipality of Santiago de Cuba. A random sample was taken from class No. 41 consisting of 50 regular course students. The sample also included five teachers of the Department of Physical Education Practice, with more than five years of experience teaching Methodological theory of Physical Education, five promoters of the Program Educate your Child belonging to the 30 de Noviembre Sports Center, resulting from the need to prepare students with that purpose.

Research methods used

The scientific methods used are listed below:

Theoretical method:

Analysis and synthesis: It permitted the integration and association of general information collected from bibliographic sources, the determination of the theoretical rationale, and the conclusions.

Empirical methods:

Observation: It was used to determine the shortcomings related to ludic activities implemented in the teaching-learning process (in class), and the activities performed as part of the Program Educate your Child.

Techniques used:

Student surveys: Surveys were conducted to determine the knowledge and mastery of students about ludic activities with the children inserted in the Program Educate your Child.

Interviews: These were helpful to collect data through questions from students and teachers whose critical answers revealed the shortcomings found in this research.

Expert opinions: To gather valuable judgment about the feasibility of the action proposal.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Few subjects offer opportunities to implement ludic activities (games) in the Program Educate your Child. The preparation provided to conduct physical activity inside the Program is poor. The actions taken for the preparation of the Program are few. There is scarce knowledge of the physiological and psychological traits of children, so the teachers are unaware of the type of movement game to implement for motor development. Accordingly, no games of this type are conducted.

These actions contribute to students’ individual development through their education as teachers. These actions enable the preparation of pedagogic professional knowledge and skills. The actions encourage the formation of personality, research work, and student identification with their educational jobs.

The general objective of the actions is to achieve proper preparedness of Physical Culture students for future work in the implementation of the Program Educate your Child.

Pedagogic actions

Action No.1

Topic: Student preparation for the implementation of ludic activities.

Objective: to characterize the student preparation process.

Development: the students will be given a document about the content of the physical activity for better future performance as a professional. They will read the text silently, and express their opinion about the material, thus organizing a discussion on the need for preparation of ludic activities in the Program Educate your Child.

Method: explicative, oral presentation, joint design.

Procedures: talks and questions.

Implementation way: a discussion will take place about the need for preparation to engage in physical activity, its relevance, and its objectives. Questions and answers about physical activity preparation:

1. What do you understand by ludic preparedness?

2. What will be your role in the Program Educate your Child?

3. Do you think preparedness provides the necessary knowledge to develop physical activity in children?

Conclusion: Each student will express what they thought about the activity, using only one word.

Action No.2

Topic: Ludic activity and the Program Educate your Child.

Objective: To create awareness in the Physical Culture students through the Program Educate your Child.

Development: Didactic materials (books, essays, or other ludic-related aids) necessary for preschool education will be handed out to conduct the activity, which will include a student discussion about it.

The program aims to educate children through the basic motor skills, and coordinative capacities that permit raising child’s independence and stimulate their initiative and creative activity.

Method: Cooperated design. Oral presentation.

Procedures: observation, questions.

Implementation: There will be an exchange of ideas about the significance of the program to children and their families, and how it develops through games about the surrounding environment. The relevance of performing ludic activities in this stage.

A session of questions will be included.

1. Do you consider the ludic activity relevant for children?

2. Is the work you will perform in the program Educate your Child significant for child development? Why?

3. What are relevant aspects in pre-school age to develop motor skills?

Conclusion: A student will offer a summary of the whole activity and express their feelings.

Action No.3

Topic: The ludic approach.

Objective: To characterize the ludic approach to students in the Program Educate your Child.

Development: The activity is suggested to begin by handing in a blank sheet of paper where students will write their considerations about the ludic approach, and characterize the process.

Method: Cooperated design.

Implementation: Following the writing activity, each student will read their notes, and the specialists in charge of the class will ask questions:

1. What do you understand by the ludic approach?

2. What elements must be considered to implement a ludic approach?

Then, the students will read their answers out loud so that everyone knows the different opinions about the ludic approach. Then they can express other opinions since the teachers must be well prepared to perform every activity including children. Games are regulating and compensating elements of the potential child’s energies, an essential means of interaction and socialization.

Conclusion: The students will express their feelings about the activity using one word.

Action No.4

The professional ludic approach of Physical Culture in the Program Educate your Child.

Objective: To identify the Physical Culture professional in their work environment.

Development: The students will receive a sheet of paper containing three questions.

1. Why is the Physical Culture Bachelor Degree a pedagogic degree?

2. What is the meaning of ludic activity or ludic approach to you in the Program Educate your Child?

3. What qualities must a teacher have to be a good Physical Culture professional?

The different answers will be read out loud and discussed in the class based on the students’ opinions.

Method: explicative.

Procedure: questions and answers.

Implementation: It will be performed collectively; the theoretical elements of the process will be determined, and the professional identity will be discussed through professional interests, knowing to grow, which will include an investigation of aspects associated with the pedagogical profession. The following question will be included:

1. What is the value of games to children?

2. How relevant is the work you perform in the Program Educate your Child?

3. Why is this the Program’s work pedagogic?

Conclusion: The students will be given a strip of paper where they will write a single word that describes their opinion of the activity, such as good, average, interesting, etc. The answers are discussed in class.

Analysis of results

To assess the feasibility and efficacy of the pedagogic actions to enhance the Physical Culture students’ preparedness to use a ludic approach in the Program Educate your Child.

The survey was applied to eight specialists, three of them with a bachelor’s degree in Physical Culture, municipal advisors of the Program Educate your Child with over ten years of experience in this area, two doctors with a PhD. in the Faculty of Physical Culture, associate professors with over twenty years of work, two master’s degrees in physical activity in the community with ten years of experience (Table 1) .

Table 1.  - Survey data 

Specialists	Teaching category	Academic category	Years of experience	Specialists %
Teachers (2)	Associate	Two master’s degrees	15 and 20 years	25%
Teachers (2)	Associate	Two doctors	More than 20 years	25%
Teachers (1)	Assistant	Master	10 years	12.5%
Advisors (3)	Assistant	A Bachelor’s Degree in Physical Culture	10 years	37.5%

The following parameters were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the actions:

• Very satisfactory.

• Satisfactory.

• Little satisfactory.

• Unsatisfactory.

Specialist opinions

Scientific level and currentness of the pedagogic actions proposal using the ludic approach with the Physical Culture students

All the specialists coincided in the very satisfactory currentness of the actions, and their scientific value since they respond to the current context of the university where the physical culture professional is trained. It allows them to acquire greater knowledge to perform ludic activities as part of the Program Educate your Child, preparing them to lead a more comprehensive development of children.

Overall, they stated that the actions implemented will enable greater Physical Culture student preparedness to use a ludic approach in the implementation of Program Educate your Child. Five specialists (62.5%) noted that the actions were feasible and very satisfactory for the development of the ludic approach. Three specialists (37.5%) said that the pedagogic actions were essential and interesting, as they permit the continuation of ludic actions or topics during student preparedness to implement the ludic approach, considering the proposal satisfactory. The specialists considered it a significant development. It was valued as very satisfactory for the feasibility level (Table 2).

Table 2.  - Survey results 

	Very satisfactory		Satisfactory		Little satisfactory		Unsatisfactory
Scientific level	(8)	100%	0	0%	0	0%	0	0%
Feasibility	(5)	62.5%	(3)	37.5%	0	0%	0	0%
Currentness	(8)	100%	0%	0%	0	0%	0	0%
Total	(21)	87.5%	3	(12.5%)	0	0%	0	0%

CONCLUSIONS

Professional education is vital since it aims to achieve student preparedness, allowing them to know the profession better in theory and practice.

The pedagogic actions based on a ludic approach contain a set of activities implemented during the training process of Physical Culture students to perform the physical activity within the Program Educate your Child, which could enhance the performance of these students.

The assessment of pedagogic actions by different specialists coincided in that they favor the student training process to use the ludic approach to be inserted in the Program Educate your Child. The implementation of the pedagogical actions was evaluated as very satisfactory.

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Received: October 30, 2021; Accepted: December 20, 2021

^*Autor para la correspondencia: [e-mail]

Los autores declaran no tener conflictos de intereses.

Los autores han participado en la redacción del trabajo y análisis de los documentos.