An online questionnaire survey was conducted among high school students in Japan to clarify their perceptions of high school health and physical education (PE) teachers. This study aimed to clarify the relationships among the differences in student attributes and motivations in health and PE classes. The study results are summarized as follows:

1. The study results showed four factors related to the high school students’ perceptions of health and PE teachers: “lacking the competency of a good teacher,” “endearing character,” “athlete” and “central role in the school.”

2. Regarding the high school students’ perceptions of health and PE teachers, comparisons were conducted using the following two attributes: “gender,” “school grade.” The results showed a significant difference only for the “gender” attribute, whereas no significant differences were noted for “school grade.”

3. The relationships among high school students’ perceptions of PE teachers, and student motivations in PE classes were analyzed in this study. The analysis results showed that “endearing character” had significantly positive effects. Moreover, the relationships among high school students’ perceptions of health teachers, and student motivations in health classes were analyzed in this study. The results showed significantly positive effects for “endearing character” and “central role in the school,” whereas significantly negative effects were noted for “athlete.”

Recently, eradication of power harassment and corporal punishment are areas of concern in the sport’s world in Japan. Under these circumstances, in order to resolve these concerns, interview surveys were conducted with athletes and leaders of the Japan Olympic Committee (JOC) and the Japan Sports Association (JSPO) member organizations, but appropriate guidelines have not been established and the relationships between the parties are too lax. The road to solving the problem, such as the fact that the investigation was deficient due to half-hearted attitudes, is a complicated and distressing deep-rooted concern that will be a major issue in the future. In addition, in the women’s gymnastics category that is the subject of this study, there is power harassment accompanied by mental distress due to intimidating behavior, which is also the case in American women’s gymnastics. However, there are few studies that elucidate these matters, and more research is needed to clarify them. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop a power harassment scale for women’s gymnastics. In order to achieve the purpose, we first analyzed the responses from the interviews in the preliminary survey. Then for this survey, we asked university students of the same generation to answer questions, regardless of their sporting speciality or gender, and two points were implemented to give generality. A questionnaire consisting of 16 items in four categories (relationship with the coach, physical and physical distress, individual infringement, multiple factor reprimands) was prepared.

In recent years, corporal punishment by coaches during athletic activities has been decreasing. On the contrary, verbal abuse, including rants by coaches have been reported frequently by the media. Some severe cases of verbal abuse have driven students to suicide. This severe form of coaching may be the background for coaches’ belief that “corporal punishment and verbal emotionally abusive behaviors are different” following the doctrine that “victory is everything.” The objectives of this study were 1) to clarify the relationship between corporal punishment and verbal abuse in terms of frequency and degree and 2) to identify crucial types of harassment, intimidation, and humiliation-related to severe cases of corporal punishment. A questionnaire on athletic coaching (specifically, corporal punishment and verbal abuse) in high school was answered by 361 college students. Among the respondents, 22.2% experienced corporal punishment and 45.7% endured verbal abuse. Moreover, more experiences involving verbal abuse by coaches were indicative of more experiences of corporal punishment (r_s=0.53). Furthermore, more experiences of worrying about verbal abuse led to more experiences of worrying about corporal punishment (r_s=0.35). Additionally, there was a significant correlation between experiencing severe corporal punishment and experiencing hearing phrases such as “that’s why everyone thinks you’re an idiot!,” “you’re out of this sport!,” “you’re not qualified to teach the younger members!,” “out of my sight!,” and “you don’t have any potential!” (V>0.35). This study revealed the relationship (frequency and degree) between verbal abuse and corporal punishment in sports coaching situations. Findings indicated that certain words were uttered as verbal abuse in combination with corporal punishment. Further studies may help with the development of methods that deter corporal punishment and verbal abuse by focusing attention not only on clarifying the direct cause of the former but also the daily relationship between coaches and students.

Many studies have been conducted on the sole of the foot in which the foot’s length and width, floating toe, and planter arch have been employed as foot sole characteristics.

Although it seems that these measurements and judgments have been largely dependent on the tester’s subjectivity. The data reliability and objectivity have been examined in only a few studies.

This study aimed to examine the reliability and objectivity of the sole type, morphological values, and judgment values of the sole, which were measured by employing the Pie method, namely, the handprint/footprint manufactored by the Pilot Ink Co., Ltd. We first measured 65 university students’ soles with type 1 and, subsequently, 44 with type 2. Among these, 44 students consented to being measured again on another day. Reliability was examined by the degree of agreement between the measured and judgment values of types 1 and 2 on two occasions. Objectivity was examined by the degree of agreement between the measured and judgment values of type 1 using two testers. The intraclass correlation coefficient was utilized for the agreement-degree of the measured values, and the Kappa coefficient was employed for the agreement-degree of the judgments.

The results of the analysis revealed that there were no significant differences between the two measurement values and judgment values of types 1 and 2. Furthermore, their reliability coefficients were high. The results also demonstrated no significant differences between the measured values and judgment values of the two testers for type 1. Moreover, their reliability coefficients were high. In conclusion, it was considered that the reliability and objectivity of the morphological values of the sole and the judgment values of floating toes and arches by employing the Pie method were high.

The purpose of this study was to clarify the relationship between two self-identities of teachers who coach athletic club activities (their sport coach identity and their teacher identity) and their degree of mental depression and to clarify the factors that formed the identity associated with depression. The participant were 157 middle school and high school teachers who coached athletic club activities (male: 128, female: 29), who completed the Brief Scale of Social Support for Workers (BSSSW; Mori and Miura, 2006), the scale support for family, the Sports Coach (teacher) Identity Scale (Yahiro and Hagiwara, 2019), the teacher identity scale (Matsui and Shibata, 2008), PHQ-9 (Muramatsu et al., 2007; Muramatsu and Kamijima, 2009). The reliability and validity of every scale were confirmed by Cronbach’s alpha and confirmatory factor analysis. The result of this research indicated that the teacher self-identity demonstrated a relationship with depression. In addition, multiple regression analysis showed that support from family demonstrated a relationship with teacher identity and the BSSSW didn’t demonstrate a relationship with teacher identity. This study finds that receiving support from family forms the teacher identity and forming a teacher identity could prevent depressive tendencies.

In recent years, using virtual reality (VR) technology has been attracting attention as a way to watch sports. Knowing the level of satisfaction of spectators and the characteristics of spectators will contribute to development of sports spectating. The purpose of this study was to ascertain information on the level of satisfaction of spectators while watching VR rugby games. As it is possible to measure the level of satisfaction using brain waves, an electroencephalograph (EEG) was used to examine the differences between experienced rugby players and inexperienced VR viewers. The subjects were 2 male college students who are rugby players and 2 male college students who have never played rugby. The subjects watched highlights of a VR rugby match for two minutes while wearing EEG electrodes (NeuroSky Co. Ltd., Japan). The brain waves measured with an EEG was changed to the level of satisfaction with the KANSEI module logger (Littlesoftware Inc., Japan). First, the amount of change in satisfaction between the resting-state and VR watching-state was calculated individually. In addition, we conducted a time series analysis of the degree of satisfaction. The results indicate that, “scrum,” “tackle” and “try” scenes were high satisfaction points for rugby players compared to the non-player. It was also found that there is a difference in satisfaction in the moment when the players enter the stadium between rugby players and the non-player. In conclusion, these results found that there is a difference in satisfaction between experienced players and non-player. It was suggest that when broadcasting a sports game in VR, it is necessary to take into consideration the previous sports experience of the viewers.

[Aims] The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between muscle hardness and muscle tenderness threshold in ski instructors during a ski training camp. [Methods] Five ski instructors (ranged 21 to 60 years) participated in this study. All subjects voluntarily gave written informed consent to participate in this study. The research was held from Dec.24 to 28, 2015 in Niseko Annupuri International Ski Area. We measured the muscle hardness and the muscle tenderness threshold in muscles (trapezius muscle and tibialis anterior muscle in both dominant and non-dominant sides) every morning of each day. The skiing distance, instructing time and air temperature were also measured during the ski training. [Results] There was no change in muscle hardness of the trapezius muscles during ski training. However, the muscle hardness of tibialis anterior muscles and muscle tenderness threshold of two muscles were significantly enhanced (p<0.05–p<0.01) day by day. Between muscle hardness and muscle tenderness threshold in each muscle of individual subject, there were the correlation (trapezius muscle: r=0.54–0.83, tibialis anterior muscle: r=0.21–0.8, (n=5)). Each one subject in two muscles was showed a significant correlation, in contrast, other subjects were not showed. [Conclusions] There were no related between muscle tenderness threshold and muscle hardness, when muscle fatigue of ski instructors enhanced during ski training. Our results suggested that the change of muscle tenderness threshold was no affected by the change of muscle hardness within physiological variation in increasing muscle fatigue. And, the change of muscle tenderness threshold may be affected by the several other factors, for example the mental stress.

This study aimed to clarify elementary school teachers’ confidence in teaching basketball classes according to the curriculum guidelines and the difficulties they face, and to help develop future teacher training and class programs.

We used Google Forms to conduct a questionnaire survey with teachers who have experience teaching basketball lessons to fifth- and sixth-grade students. Out of the 163 responses received, there were 141 final analysis targets, after excluding those with incomplete answers.

The results revealed the following:

1) Overall, many teachers were not confident in teaching “dribbling,” “defense,” “movement (passing),” “modify (modified games),” “shooting,” and “movement (scoring).”

2) Significant differences in ” modify (modified games),” “catch,” “defense,” “rules,” and “tell” were observed in the different teaching experiences.

3) Teachers who had no experience in either competition or teaching had particularly low confidence in “dribbling” and “defense.”

4) In the free descriptions of “difficulties and worries in teaching basketball,” a high percentage of the comments were related to individual skills. In addition, there were some comments about the “place,” such as the lack of basketball goals.

From the above, it was determined that it is necessary to conduct training for teachers and develop class programs for games with ingenious rules that can improve individual skills in dribbling, catching, and defending, and that can be played with fewer basketball goals using these skills.