Methodological arguments support in maintaing the development of an anti-doping competence in the formal education of high school sports program students

Abstract

The purpose of the research was to provide scientific arguments in support of the introduction of a general competence in the discipline of Sports Theoretical Training for the students enrolled in high school level sports programs with an aim to prevent and fight doping in sport. The research was carried out in order to verify whether the two following hypotheses are confirmed: I1. The contribution of the discipline Sports Theoretical Training to the vocational-sports high school cycle can also extend to the shaping and development of a proactive conduct supporting the prevention and fight against doping in sport, based on expanding the contents of this discipline with input consisting in elementary notions of anti-doping education; I2. The development of a competence geared towards pro-active anti-doping attitudes and values instilled in the students enrolled in the vocational-sports high school cycle, fosters the educational nature of the discipline and enables the acquisition of a responsible behavior of the athletes. In order to achieve the purpose of the research, the following methods were used: the method of documentation, the method of pedagogical observation, the method of pedagogical experiment, the statistical-mathematical method, the questionnaire-based survey method. The pedagogical experiment was carried out in 2021, at the level of grade 11 high-school students - as we deemed that the students enrolled at this level have the required age, intellectual level and psychological training to assimilate anti-doping information. The outcomes of the experiment indicated that the two hypotheses are confirmed and that it is appropriate to integrate anti-doping notions in the content of the Theoretical Sports Training discipline - at grade 11 level.