earticle

영어

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among psychological factors (personality, sociality and stress), and physical fitness variables in multicultural children, and to investigate the effects of participating in a physical education (PE) program on psychological factors and physical fitness levels in them. A three-item questionnaire, a body composition test, and physical fitness tests were carried out on 37 children in late September and late November of 2016 in S-City. The children were classified into 4 groups: multicultural children who participated in PE program (mPE, n=9), multicultural children who did not participate in PE program (mNPE, n=10), Korean children who participated in PE program (kPE, n=9), and Korean children who did not participate in PE program (kNPE, n=9), respectively. Here, mPE was the experimental group whereas, mNPE, kPE, and kNPE were control groups. Non-parametric statistical methods were conducted on the collected data with a significance level set a priori at P<.05. Data were analyzed by Spearman rho test for finding relationships among variables. The Kruskal-Wallis was used for the differences among the 4 groups and then Bonferroni post hoc test was used for significant differences in the Kruskal-Wallis test. At last, the Wilcoxon tests were performed for the time differences between the pre- and post-test groups. The results are as followed. First, there were significant relationships among psychological factors and physical fitness variables of multicultural children. Specifically, 1) there were significant negative correlations between stress and sociality, and between stress and extroverted personality type. Meanwhile, there was a significant positive correlation between sociality and extroverted personality type. 2) There was a significant positive correlation between sociality and cardiopulmonary endurance. Meanwhile, there were significant negative correlations between stress and cardiopulmonary endurance and between stress and flexibility. There were significant positive correlations between extroverted personality type and flexibility and between extroverted personality type and muscular strength. Second, the effects of participating in the PE program on psychological factors of multicultural children were as follows: 1) The personality scores of mPE showed improving tendencies after 8 weeks. 2) The sociality scores of mPE also significantly increased, whereas, 3) the stress scores of mPE significantly decreased. Third, regarding the effects of PE program on physical factors, 1) the body weight, muscle mass, and resting metabolic rate of mPE were significantly increased after 8 weeks. 2) The cardiopulmonary endurance, muscular endurance, strength, and power of physical fitness variables in mPE significantly improved after 8 weeks. In conclusion, this study confirmed that the psychological factors and physical fitness variables in multicultural children were significantly correlated and that participating in an 8-week PE program can provide positive psychophysical effects to children living in multicultural families.