Virtual Mass Media as a Tool of Undergraduate Students’ Health Preserving Competence Formation

Background and aim of study:

Due to the modern Ukrainian society needs to protect, strength and promote the values of human health, the problem of citizens’ health preserving competence is obvious. Nowadays university student youth is an essential social group of population that reflects political, cultural, social, economic and mental development of Ukrainian society. Thus, the scientific interest to university students’ health preserving competence formation has increased rapidly. Based on the analysis of a considerable number of educational, sociological, psychological and medical researches, undergraduate students’ health preserving competence is determined as one of the key components of professional culture of future specialist; it is an organized system of special knowledge and skills used by individuals in order to achieve the purposes of their self-determination and professional self-realization through ensuring protection and force of both physical and mental health. The aim of this study is to define the peculiarities and review the impact of virtual mass media on undergraduate students’ health preserving competence formation.

Research methods:

In the study the following methods have been applied: theoretical (analysis, comparison, generalization and interpretation of results) and empirical (undergraduate students’ questionnaire, discussions, pedagogical observation).

Results:

Nowadays many foreign and domestic scholars (Barlas, 2018; Chychynska, 2019; Korostyl, 2018; Mohr, 2017; Pachos & Poltorak, 2019; Parker et al., 2019) focus on the fact that modern university youth is representing the “generation Z” that is growing up in digital environment and used to use online mass media for different purposes, in particularly preservation and strengthening their physical and mental health. Popular social media such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram, Likee, WhatsApp, etc. often contain plenty of information for health behavior promotion. For example, healthy lifestyle reality shows or online projects; healthy diet programmes; a non-commercial fitness sessions; websites that provide free emotional and psychological support of individuals; scientific research forums and public health care and medical blogs. So, virtual mass media often inform, educate, create healthy environment and mobilize student youth’s behavior change and health promotion and so on. Our research results have shown that virtual mass media is an effective tool of undergraduate students’ health preserving competence formation and have a great potential for health and healthy lifestyle values popularization to large audience of university youth.

Conclusion:

Modern virtual mass media develop undergraduate students’ health preserving competence through formation stable knowledge of university youth audience about values of individual health for the successful individual and professional well-being; creation extremely strong motivation to health behavior changes; popularization the benefits of healthy lifestyle; stimulation to participate in physical and mental health protection social projects; integration the individual students’ health needs into society’s health norms; support the creation of health preserving educational environment and future professional health preserving environment as well. Thus, today virtual mass media is an efficient tool of health promotion outcomes of Ukrainian university student youth.

DOI and UDC:

UDC: 378.147.091-052:659.3 DOI: 10.26697/ijes.2020.2.13

Information about the authors:

Kurlishchuk Inna Ivanivna – Doctor of Philosophy in Pedagogy, Associate Professor, Associate Professor at Department of Pedagogy, Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University, Starobilsk, Ukraine. Research interests: higher education and training, university students’ socialization by mass media, media education of individuals, health preserving competence; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7980-7090. Aleksieieva Oksana Radyslavivna – Doctor of Philosophy in Pedagogy, Associate Professor at Department of Pedagogy, Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University, Starobilsk, Ukraine. Research interests: higher education, professional culture of future specialist, youth socialization, impact of health preserving technologies on individual socialization; http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3719-6775.