earticle

영어

The purpose of this study was to figure out the difficulties experienced by coaches teaching rehabilitation exercise for the Aged in terms of their understanding of the characteristics of the age, course instruction, and learning environment. To achieve the proposed research purpose, three sports instructors for the aged working at senior community center, health center or senior citizen welfare center in Seoul, Gyeonggi and Incheon areas were selected. Data were collected through In-depth interview, participant observation and documents. The collected data were analyzed using ‘domain analysis', 'taxonomic analysis' and 'componential analysis' suggested by Spradley (1979). Analysis of the collected data resulted in the following results. The coaches teaching rehabilitation exercise for the aged underwent difficulties in the three aspects. First of all, in terms of understanding the characteristics of the aged, they often failed to have a sense of intimacy that caused a difficulty in helping them learn. And as they met the aged at a time when they had no idea of physical activities in the past, and physical characteristics according to their job, personal characters and leisure activities, they were not able to figure out the general physical features of the aged. In terms of the course instruction, the instructors had great difficulties in planning programs due to diverse problems such as physical restriction, problem of place for activity, lack of equipment for the aged, interest and fun. Furthermore, they felt confused much on whom they focused while carrying out group activities for their differences in age, personal fitness, and clinical history. In terms of course environment, they felt difficulties in securing space and budget as they had to run the classes in different places and also they expressed their hardship for the lack of suitable teaching materials for the aged.