Povzun V.D., Povzun A.A., Apokin V.V.

Surgut State University, Russia

IMPROVEMENT OF ACADEMIC PROGRESS OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS USING BIORHYTHM RECORDS

Improvement of the quality of the teaching process is an acute goal of any modern university that has been much spoken and written about. The authors of numerous researches prove convincingly that the quality is determined by the variety of factors, which in their hierarchy are extremely important for correct diagnostics, forecasting and planning of didactic processes, development of high-performance technologies of control of teaching efficiency. First and foremost, we are speaking on health factors – ecological, geophysical, sanitary and hygienic, and we assume this fact is very important, first of all, for sports departments. Firstly, since, for example, the role of physical culture is getting much more important not only in increasing health level, but the quality of teaching [1], secondly, for it reveals the potentials of completely new methods of organization of the educational process at sports departments, where many difficulties take place due to the impossibility of organizing classes in the usual mode, for example, due to students’ frequent attendance of trainings, competitions, training camps, and ultimately inevitable missing of classes and not fitting the schedule.

Meanwhile, numerous researchers note in their works the existing influence of geophysical factors and efficiency of teaching and physical working capacity, the manner of relations in collectives etc, and the influence of these factors must be stronger than we expect [2]. Therefore, we focused on the correlation of progress and cyclic oscillations of intellectual, physical and emotional activities, known as a three rhythms concept, where a man has special 23-day (physical), 28-day (emotional) and 33-day (intellectual) rhythms [3].

It should be specified that we know all the weak points of the three rhythms theory and are familiar with rather serious academic discussions on its authenticity [4,5,6]. But despite the lack of strong academic base, scientists are still not eager to completely reject the theory of these rhythms. Their hesitation is explained, first of all, by the problem of selecting a statistically reliable approach and the number of cases limited by various reasons and the lack of its precise evaluation criteria [7]. Hence, up to now the theory has not been ultimately disproved but, moreover, new works arise that explain the existence of three rhythms from completely new points of view [3,8].

Nevertheless, we did not mean to dispute the correctness or incorrectness of the hypothesis itself. In our work, we proceeded from the fact that in case of existence of these rhythms their correct cyclicity promotes earlier allocation of critical days, when man is to refrain from taking important decisions and be especially cautious in the situations when the body is put to some tests, in our case, for example, terminal examinations.

The problem is that today the standard curriculum of the overwhelming majority of higher educational institutions provides for strict connection of terminal examinations and specific dates, which is absolutely appropriate in view of traditional organization of classes and its control. But such a situation provokes lots of difficulties, at least, among the students of sports departments and possibly other students, actively involved in sport, whose individual sports schedule is strictly related to various sports events and accompanying measures (trainings, training camps, visits etc.). The attempts to organize flexible hours of finishing with any academic standings are not taken with passion (the authors face it on a regular basis), especially in non-sports departments, while it still happens de facto, but there are hardly any grounded scientific reasons in favor of arranging flexible, at least, terminal examination conditions. Based on our findings, we suppose that in spite of its vulnerability, the three rhythms hypothesis can be a quite forcible argument in favor of the individual approach to the schedule of terminal examinations, and for students of any other specialities but not only for athletes. Moreover, we assume, that it will promote not only better organization of the distribution of educational loadings for athletes but improve the quality of the educational process in general. Moreover, the concept of new higher education standards is based on the ideas of the system-activity approach, according to its logics efficiency of student and teacher’s activity, university educational process in general, is defined first of all by the nature of conditions under which it is progressing and thus it is wrong to ignore the capacities of recording the biorhythmological factor.

Hence, the purpose of the study was to determine the degree of impact of students’ biorhythms on their progress. Thereto the problems set included: calculating biorhythms of university students (the sampling included students of the biological department); studying the manner of relationship between two factor characteristics: students’ progress and biorhythms; checking statistical significance of calculations using the criterion χ²; in case of existing correlation suggesting recommendations on training of students for an exam and organizing knowledge digestion control in compliance with his individual biorhythm.

It is to be marked that students of biological, but not sports department took part in the experiment, since it was proved impossible to trace the influence of individual rhythm on athletes’ examination results due to the reasons stipulated above, i.e. divergence of examination days of the schedule with actual examination days.

Student’s biorhythm was calculated using the software by M. Godovitsyn, ensuring calculation of three classic sinusoids, without regard for intuition. The biorhythm was calculated using the given software in the day of examination and the state of student’s biorhythms was compared with his estimation on that day. 3-year students of the biological department (58 persons) were the subjects of the study. Marks they got on fourteen exams during six examinations within three years of studies were considered by the progress criterion. The students’ examination results in all subjects who had matching good days and good marks (above grade 3) and, on the contrary, bad marks (3 or lower) and bad days for every discipline were tabulated. Next the relations between these indices were checked using the correlation analysis. The correlation coefficient (С) was calculated by the A.A. Chuprov’s formula [9]. All the coefficients are statistically reliable at α= 0,05.

The correlation between the indices can be direct if С>0 or inverse if С<0. There is no correlation if С=0. The correlation is functional if С= +1 or – 1. The closer /С/ is to the figure one the closer the correlation is, the closer to zero the weaker. The results of our calculations are presented in Table 1.

Proceeding from the study, direct correlations occur between all the examination results and good days of university students.

Table 1. Estimation of the direction and nature of correlation between students’ good days and their examination results on those days

Subjects	Correlation coefficient	Direction and nature of correlation
History	0,721	Strong direct correlation
Chemistry general and inorganic	0,645	Moderate direct correlation
Physics	0,675	Moderate direct correlation
Chemistry general and inorganic	0,338	Weak direct correlation
Botany (phytotomy)	0,655	Moderate direct correlation
Invertebrate zoology	0,587	Moderate direct correlation
Philosophy	0.584	Moderate direct correlation
Chemistry organic	0,574	Moderate direct correlation
Physics	0,525	Moderate direct correlation
Foreign language	0,565	Moderate direct correlation
Economics	0,574	Moderate direct correlation
Chemistry (physical and colloid)	0,685	Moderate direct correlation
Botany (plant taxonomy)	0,625	Moderate direct correlation
Vertebrate zoology	0,695	Moderate direct correlation

As follows from the studies of students' educational activity, the progress of students with a good biorhythmic type was the biggest in single subjects within the examination, whereas the whole day of students with bad type of biorhythm was a complete failure in case of equal educational requirements. Thus, the researches we have carried out approved the fact that mental performance of subjects with good biorhythms is higher during the day, so biorhythms render a positive effect on the exam results in good days. This result is assumed to give the grounds for the more optimal organization of the distribution of the examination load not only for students of sports faculties. In view of the stable character of day changes of students' inner rhythms and the fact that students and teacher are capable of pre-forecasting the potential progress and finding the best variant of the examination or test terms in the more comfortable for both of them period of time, it is possible to achieve a more qualitative result in their studies.

Despite its argumentativeness, the given hypothesis has the right to be, along with the deserved right of the distribution and practice of flexible realization of the curriculum, focused on the qualitative improvement of the results of education via improved conditions, including organizational ones.

It should be marked that some countries are already actively applying the theory to the practice when from time of time a student can have examinations in some disciplines of the curriculum under a flexible schedule using the opportunities for building block education and basing on the academic freedom principle, that delegates him not only the responsibility for the content of his curriculum and the quality of its implementation, but the opportunity for submitting its execution to the university administration for approval, including the examination and test deadlines.

References

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2. Biorhythms / Ed. by Yu. Ashoff. – Moscow: Mir, 1984, V. 1. – 414 P., V. 2. – 262 P. (In Russian)

3. Glass, L. From clocks to chaos: The rhythms of life/ L. Glass, M. Mackey. – Moscow: Mir, 1991. – 124 P. (In Russian)

4. Detari, L. Biorhythms: contemporary ideas on cyclic variations of bioprocesses / L. Detari. V. Kartsagi. – Moscow: Mir, 1984 –160 P. (In Russian)

5. Klimova, T.E. Methods of correlation analysis in pedagogics: study guide /T.E. Klimova. – Magnitogorsk, MaSU, 2000. – 96 P. (In Russian)

6. Kotel'nik.L.A. We are children of the sun: Cycle: space and life rhythms. P. 2 / L.A. Kotel'nik. – Kiev: Znaniya Ukraini, 1990. – 48 P. (In Russian)

7. Kuznetsov, Yu.F. Human biorhythms: physical, emotional and intellectual / Yu.F. Kuznetsov. – Amrita-Rus', 2006. – 384 P. (In Russian)

8. Solov'ev, V.N. Students' progress in studies as one of the indices of adaptation to the university educational process /V.N. Solov'ev // Fizicheskaya kultura: vospitanie, obrazovanie, trenirovka. – 2004. – № 3. – P. 21–22. (In Russian)

9. Winfrey, A.T. Biological time / A.T. Winfrey. – Moscow: Mir, 1990. – 208 P. (In Russian)