A Computer Program for Evaluation of Children’s Fitness at Football Classes

The article features a method of evaluation of individual fitness of children aged 10-14 at football classes involving the use of the “E-journal Football” computer program, taking into consideration children’s health condition, age, gender, morpho-functional and mental health characteristics. «E-journal Football” computer program has been described in terms of evaluation of academic progress efficiency during football lessons. Additionally, the program may also assess technical aspects of children’ activities based on their anthropometric, psychophysical and musculoskeletal characteristics. In total, 212 children aged 10–14 took part in the study. They were subdivided into two groups – the experimental group (EG) with 53 boys and 53 girls and the control group (CG) with 54 boys and 52 girls. The traditional methods based on the average indices of preliminary qualification used to teach movements in football have been applied in CG, while the other group employed the methods based on “E-journal Football” computer program considering the children’s age, gender and physical characteristics. The implementation of the developed method of evaluation of children’s individual physical preparedness at football classes based on the use of “E-journal Football” computer program resulted in improvement of the children’s psycho-emotional health and motor functions. It was concluded that according to all performance indicators of children’s physical fitness during football classes, there was a clear increase in certain indicators in the experimental group compared with those in the control group (p<0.05): for example, keeping the ball indicators among the boys in EG rose by 7% against those of 4.5% in CG; similarly, the girls in EG showed a 7.3% increase in keeping the ball compared with only 5.5% in CG. Stopping the ball performance showed the improvement of 23.5% and 12.3% among the boys in EG and CG correspondingly, while the girls demonstrated 32% and 12.2% in EG and CG correspondingly. The application of the experimental method of evaluation of children’s individual fitness at football classes with the use of informational-communication technologies (ICT) resulted in children’s increased motivation to physical education regardless age and gender, which improved general performance in football classes.