Ways of revealing students’ attitude to ski training within physical culture and sports discipline as a means of physical culture development

Statement of the problem. Due to the natural conditions and climate of the Russian Federation, ski training for the sports and wellness purposes is one of the most affordable and popular types of physical exercise. This is no coincidence that besides being a compulsory element of the university curriculum, this physical activity got included into the recently revived All-Russian Sports Complex “Ready for Labour and Defense” approved in 2014. However, as the sports and wellness industry develops and the range of sports and wellness services offered to the population broadens, the ski sport coaches face the task of supporting and strengthening the interest of the youth in ski training. The problem of the physical culture teachers specializing in ski training is the search for arguments in favour of ski training within the Physical Culture and Sports discipline. To get the students majoring in non-sports subjects involve in ski training voluntarily, it is necessary to enhance their interest and get the students motivated to train. The purpose of the article is to explore the students’ attitude to ski training as a means of physical culture included into the Physical Culture and Sports discipline, the results of which should be considered as a management tool for the teacher consisting of motivated arguments, as well as improvement of the training program to enhance the students’ interest for such training. The research methods are based on analysis and synthesis of the scientific and research works focused on the development of motivation and its main elements, analysis of the published academic works and educational experience in the student youth sports and wellness activity domain, analysis of the traditional ski training methods used at universities and the practical experience of the university staff, practical sociological survey methods like questionnaires and interviews. The research results provide the foundation for the identification of the main positive and negative factors experienced by physical culture and sports majoring students at their ski trainings. Their interest is concentrated on the snowy period of the academic year; they generally prefer even aerobic activity on a small training loop, as well as training on skiing course slopes with multiple ascends and descends. More profound work on the improvement of skiing techniques in both snowy and nonsnow periods, the need to intensify their skiing activity associated with excessive physical load meet negative attitude of the students. To improve the ski training motivation, a list of arguments in favour of outdoor training was formulated to help students understand and personally evaluate their capacity for physical development and health improvement. It is used to efficiently supplement the conviction and stimulation methods used to raise the students’ need for this type of training. To strengthen the cumulative positive motivation to do ski training, the students’ interest for improvement of specific qualities and technical elements was taken into account. Conclusion. To keep the students interested in ski training, to prevent passive observer attitude to the physical culture and sport discipline, it is necessary to rely upon the achieved results with due attention to the shaping of the student’s personality and his/her individual qualities and interests.