Research on Gymnastics Textbooks for Physical Education Major in

International Journal of Technology Management

Research on Gymnastics Textbooks for Physical Education

Major in Regular Colleges and Universities

Jiao Lizhi

( Hulunbeier Institute of Physical Education College of Inner Mongolia 021008 )

Abstract:

As an important part of physical education in regular colleges and universities, gymnastics has played an active role in the

development of physical education in colleges and universities. Gymnastics textbooks used in regular colleges and universities has experienced

decades of development and needs to be revised and improved under the current physical education situation in colleges and universities, so as

to make the content more suitable for needs of college students. This paper adopts literature review, comparative analysis and statistics analysis

method to study on the existing gymnastics textbook for physical education major in regular colleges and universities in China by combing

development of textbook, summarizing the content and structure, exploring problems existing in the design of textbook in recent years, and then

proposing certain improvement suggestions on gymnastics textbook for physical education major.

Keywords:

regular colleges and universities; physical education; Gymnastics; Textbook

In recent years, China’s education system has been in

constant reform and so as the physical education. Educational

reform in physical education major in regular colleges and

universities is also in constant reform. As one of the most

important constitute part of physical education in regular colleges

and universities, it is necessary to ensure students to have certain

understanding over development history of gymnastics after

learning professional gymnastics, to cultivate their fine quality

and positive state of mind while practicing for better fitness.

It is necessary to constantly complete and update textbooks of

professional gymnastics under the situation of deepening reform

of higher education.

1. Development History of Gymnastics Textbook for Physical

Education Major in Regular Colleges and Universities

Development of Gymnastics Textbooks for Physical

Education major in regular colleges and universities has gone

through four stages: textbook introduction and exploration stage;

bottleneck stage of textbook construction; rapidly developing

stage of textbook construction; stable stage of textbook

construction.

1.1 Textbook Introduction and Exploration Stage

teacher group severely devastated, textbook construction fell into

a bottleneck stage where basically no progress was made. During

the year of 1966 to 1976, gymnastics textbook construction

in colleges and universities was basically paralyzed and no

professional textbook was published.

1.3 Rapidly developing stage of textbook construction

After the founding of New China, gymnastics textbook

construction in higher education universities in China has drawn

much experience from many of Soviet Union, with many directly

introducing gymnastics textbooks from Soviet Union. Therefore,

gymnastics textbook from Soviet Union constituted the main

body for gymnastics education in universities in China. Since

few universities set up physical education course then, relevant

textbook construction was basically blank. It wasn’t until in 1954

when 6 professional physical education colleges and universities

were founded that China began to explore on the construction of

professional gymnastics textbook. In 1991, the first self-edited

professional gymnastics textbook “Gymnastics”was released in

China and began to be adopted by physical education in many

regular colleges and universities.

1.2 Bottleneck stage of Textbook Construction

After the end of Cultural Revolution, development of

educationbegan to perk up again in China and construction of

higher education textbook entered a rapidly developing stage.

In 1977, the government announced to restart college entrance

examination system, which signaled that the country began to

emphasize knowledge construction and talent cultivation. During

the nearly 20 years after restarting college entrance examination

system, professional gymnastics textbook construction developed

rapidly in China. Firstly, the “Gymnastics” textbook was reedited

with more content and published on the basis of the 1961 edition.

5 years later the third edition of “Gymnastics” was published

with expanded content and systematical re-edition, which was

considered as of the richest content by over 730 pages in the

history. Later, different editions of gymnastic textbooks were

published specially for different level of education, including

professional physical education colleges, normal physical

education colleges, undergraduate physical education, specialty

physical education colleges, etc. Physical education textbooks

for regular colleges and universities then became rather rich in

content and tended to be more systematic, which shows that

gymnastics textbook construction in China has entered a rapidly

development stage.

1.4 Stabilizing stage of textbook construction

During the decade of Cultural Revolution, physical education

in colleges and universities was in a very chaotic state. With the

Gymnastic textbook construction for colleges and universities

has entered stabilizing stage since the 21st century. In this stage,

the government pays much attention on the construction of quality

education. As one of the most important physical education

course in regular colleges and universities, gymnastics naturally

follows the construction of national education policy and many

new textbooks are published. Gymnastics textbooks for regular

colleges and universities during this stage are of great diversity

and replaced and updated frequently. Compared with traditional

professional ones, gymnastics textbooks during this period were

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changed greatly in content, form and structure in order to meet

the professional gymnastics educational requirements for higher

education institutions.

2 Usage Situation of Professional Gymnastic Textbooks for

Physical Education in Regular Colleges and Universities

2.1 Investigation on the usage situation of professional

gymnastic textbooks for physical education in regular colleges

and universities

Aquestionnaire survey is organized by the author to

investigate the usage situation of professional gymnastic textbook

in regular colleges and universities. Currently, professional

gymnastic textbook used by teachers and students in regular

colleges and universities are mostly gymnastic textbook published

in 1989, 2005 and 2010. Among the 50 teachers who participated

in the questionnaire survey, 12 use textbook published in 1989,

20 use textbook published in 2005 and 14 use textbook published

in 2010 and 4 use other textbooks. Among the 100 students from

regular colleges and universities who participated in survey,

32 use textbook published in 1989, 50 use textbook published

in 2005, 15 use textbook published in 2010 and 3 use other

textbooks. It can be seen from the survey result that update of

gymnastic textbook in colleges and universities is rapid and

generally of high acceptance among students. However, there are

still many physical teachers who use textbook published in 1989,

which is still of classical values even though it was released nearly

30 years ago.

2.2 Evaluation of physical teachers and college students

over professional gymnastic textbooks

The author also organized a survey on the evaluation of

physical teachers and students from colleges and universities over

professional gymnastic textbook. Among the 50 physical teachers

in colleges and universities, 60% believed that textbook published

in 2010 is better, 30% expressed that they like to use textbook

published in 2005 and the rest 10% teachers like to use textbook

published in 1989 or other gymnastic textbook. Among the 100

college students who participated in the survey, 33% said they do

not like the textbook published in 1989, 70% like the textbook

published in 2010 better, and 20% believe that textbook published

in 2005 is also not bad. To summarize the above evaluations, it

can be seen that gymnastic teachers and students believe that

textbook published in 1989 has become rather old and backward

and that they like new edition gymnastic textbooks better.

The author also asked students and teachers to evaluate

content, form and structure of gymnastic textbook besides edition.

Firstly, both physical teachers and college students believed that

the cover design of textbook published in 2010 appeared to be

more attracting and more easily to stimulate the students’ interest

in learning. Many college students said that they do not like the

1989 edition due to the backward cover design. Secondly, most

teachers and college students are satisfied with the directory

design of gymnastics textbook. Few teachers and college students

who showed dissatisfaction are mostly using textbook published in

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1989, whose directory is complicated with many redundant items

and lack of logicality. As to the content of gymnastic textbooks,

most students considered that of all three boring, which is mainly

due to the long-wind and uninteresting paragraphs. Survey

result among teachers also shows that most teachers believe that

teaching content design is on average.

3. Existing problems and countermeasures in the Editing of

Professional Gymnastic Textbook for Physical Education in

Regular Colleges and Universities

It can be seen from the above survey result that there are

generally problems in the professional gymnastics textbook

editions for physical education in regular colleges and universities,

which are mainly concentrated in that gymnastics textbook cannot

stimulate students’ interest to learn, edition is lack of fun and fails

to full consider the learning psychological features of college

students.

3.1 Textbook content is too obsolete and lack of innovation

A good textbook can perfectly refl ect the latest development

result and new information, be able to stimulate students’ interest

in learning by its content and edition forms and be innovative.

Therefore, textbook content is of great importance to educational

quality. It can be seen from the evaluations of students over

professional gymnastics in colleges and universities that students

tend to choose textbook published in 2010, which demonstrated

that updated and innovative textbook content is more attractive

for students. However, college students generally believe that

the current gymnastics textbook content fails to stimulate their

learning interest, as most content are boring descriptions and at

the same time old and lack of innovative edition. For example, in

the gymnastics textbook published in 1961, “basic gymnastics”,

“queue formation exercises” and similar content basically

remained the same in the 2010 edition. After nearly 60 years of

development, the obsolete content is still presented in the old form

without innovation that it can hardly stimulate students’ interest

in learning. After so many years of development, gymnastics

textbook content stays obsolete and the theoretical knowledge and

edition form are basically unchanged, which make most students

feel bored when using the textbook.

Therefore, it is necessary for editors of gymnastic textbook

to abandon old ideas, pay attention to the latest development in

gymnastics and constantly introduce new knowledge and new

concepts in the textbook. They should delete obsolete content that

is not suitable for gymnastics education in the new era. Edition

of textbook system should also be of creativity and stimulate

students’ learning interest by increasing more pictures and

diagrams as explanatory examples and reducing lengthy boring

content.

3.2 Discipline range of textbook editors is too narrow

After nearly half century’s development, professional

gymnastics textbook for colleges and universities in China has

acquired a large-scale and relatively mature editor group. In

the several reediting of gymnastics textbooks, editors’ writing,

International Journal of Technology Management

editing and education level are also being improved year after

year. Currently gymnastics textbook editors are mainly physical

education professors, gymnastics teachers and gymnastics

professors whose discipline range is relatively narrow. As a

competition physical program, gymnastics is closely related with

the physical and mental features of participators and thus involves

knowledge of many disciplines. If the discipline range of editors

can be expanded and added with biology, psychology, language

literature professionals, it will help improve that quality of

textbooks.

3.3 Textbook content is lack of science

Editions of all textbooks should follow the scientific

principle, including that of professional gymnastics textbook

for colleges and universities. A scientific textbook is mainly

reflected in the following aspects: the content is scientific and

rational, teaching period distribution is designed scientifically

and rationally, after-school exercise is reasonable designed,

examples selected in the textbook should be proper, professional

words and actual examples should be accurate, etc. fi rstly, current

professional gymnastics textbook in colleges and universities

in China lacks scientific arrangement over teaching period

distribution. The content basically consists of theoretical basis,

gymnastic skills and gymnastic review, etc. However, the content

contains no clear suggestions on the required teaching period

distribution. Secondly, teachers generally pay much attention on

skillful teaching according to the gymnastic textbook and tend

to overlook theoreticaldelivery, which results in that students

know little about gymnastic theories. In addition, there some

inaccurate gymnastic classification and misuse of professional

word in current professional gymnastics textbook for colleges and

universities, with textbooks of different edition vary greatly and

can hardly achieve coherence.

It is necessary to pay more attention to the scientifi c editing

of gymnastics textbook since the current textbooks are generally

facing this problem. Firstly, editors should standardize content of

gymnastic textbooks, use professional words accurately and add

relevant content of teaching period distribution. They should also

absorb the latest gymnastics research achievement and newest

gymnastics education theories during the process of editing.

Design of teaching content should be target-oriented and fully

take the physical and psychological features of college students

into consideration and add some more interesting and practical

content.

3.4 Adaptiveness between textbook and teaching activities

is relatively low

Although needing to use gymnastics textbook, physical

teachers often fi nd that adaptiveness between current gymnastics

textbook and teaching activities is relatively low in colleges

and universities. Many physical teachers would firstly consider

requirements of new curriculum standards, teaching objectives,

teaching conditions and characteristics of students, then

combination with the textbook during the process of teaching.

Currently, professional gymnastics textbook in China is believed

of low adaptiveness to the teaching objectives of new curriculum

standards. In addition, teaching environment and gymnastics

equipmenton the campus also cannot keep up with the demands

of textbook. These problems show that editors should better fi t the

textbook and teaching activities.

4 Conclusion

With the reform of physical education in regular colleges

and universities in China, gymnastics textbook also needs to

be updated by abandoning obsolete content and adding some

innovative content that can better stimulate students’ interest in

learning. Editors should pay more attention on the scientifi c level

of textbook design during the editing process, biological sciences,

professional psychology, linguistics and philology professors

should be encouraged to participate in the editing; editors should

also note to increase the adaptability of textbook and teaching

activities, so as to make the teaching environment and gymnastics

equipment keep up with content of the textbook.

References

[1] Zheng Chunmei, Kong Lingqi, Development Status and Special

Features of Gymnastics Textbook in Colleges and Universities in

China [J] Chengdu Institute of Physical Education, 2010,02: 69-71.

[2] Chunhua Li, Bohua Wang. On General Gymnastics Textbook

Reform for Physical Education Major in Colleges and Universities

Since the Establishment of New China [J] Beijing Sport University,

2010, 07: 101-104.

[3] Nie Huanmi, On Using Supporting Gymnastics Audio-visual

Materials in Gymnastics Teaching in Physical Colleges [J] Neijiang

Science and Technology, 2012,11: 24 + 8.

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