Study on the SAFETY Accidents in Korean Elementary School Physical Education Classes

Abstract

This study investigates safety accidents in physical education classes which account for the largest part of the elementary school safety accidents and increasing year by year. This study is carried out in order to provide general understanding of the concept of safety accidents in elementary school physical education classes and to suggest ways to prevent safety accidents in elementary school physical education classes through previous research results and literature data. The purpose of this study is to investigate the concept of safety accidents in elementary school physical education classes based on previous studies and literature data and to suggest measures against safety accidents in elementary school physical education classes after analyzing the actual conditions of safety accidents occur in physical education classes. The concept of safety accidents in physical education classes collectively refers to all kinds of accidents in relation to physical education classes. Assuming that daily physical educations are resting on elementary school physical education classes, positive experiences in physical education are expected to have great effects on a child even after he/she is grown up. Therefore, physical education classes must be safe and safety management for physical education classes must be in place. Safety accident occurrences in physical education classes were observed to be increasing every year. It was also found that nearly half of the teachers had experienced safety accidents. Also, male teachers had more incidents of safety accident than female teachers. Higher rate of safety accident occurrences in elementary school was observed in students in higher grades. Fractures were the most frequent, followed by lacerations, tooth(mouth) injuries, sprains, and concussions. Among all bodily injuries head injury showed the highest number of 9,836 incidents, followed by hands, feet, teeth(mouthy), legs and thoracic abdomen. Some of the safety accidents in elementary school physical education classes were caused by students' carelessness, failures to follow instructions and mischievous behaviors. And some others were caused by teachers' carelessness, insufficiency in managing children and lack of safety training and facilities and teaching aids that are old, inadequate and nonconforming. In order to improve safety in elementary school physical education classes, firstly, safety awareness should be raised and training for physical education classes must be continuously made. Secondly, prevention systems such as safety inspections should be strengthened and safety management of facilities should be improved. Thirdly, safe and enjoyable physical education classes should be conducted through implementing new teaching aids.