Getting Started with Taiji: Investigating Students Expectations and Teachers Appraisals of Taiji Beginners Courses

Abstract

In recent years, Taiji has been frequently investigated and considered as a stress management intervention. Although health care providers' appraisals and consumers' expectations are regarded as essential for treatment outcome, little attention has been drawn to this issue in Taiji research. In our study we have conducted two surveys to explore beginners' (n = 74) expectations and teachers' (n = 136) appraisals of their Taiji courses in general as well as more particularly related to stress management. Qualitative data analysis revealed that beginners mainly expected to learn a new method that is applicable in their daily life to foster peace of mind and to enhance their stress management. Congruently moderate-to-high improvements in stress management have also been found in quantitative analysis, whereby a lower educational level predicted higher expectations (P = 0.016). Taiji-teachers stated body- and mind-related benefits most frequently and appraised moderate-to-high improvements in stress management. Higher appraisals were predicted by a shorter teaching experience (P = 0.024). Our results inform about beginners' expectations and teachers' appraisals related to a Taiji-beginners course and highlight the role of educational background and teaching experience in shaping stress-management-related beginners' expectations and teachers' appraisals.

Investigating short- and long-term transfer effects of a Taiji beginner course in participants' daily life

“…On average, the 45 participants reported transfer-effects of moderate intensity. These results indicate that a Taiji intervention over 12 weeks may have remarkable and long-lasting beneficial effects on participants' daily life, and thus seem to confirm the previously assessed expectation of Taiji novices regarding the transferability of Taiji beginner course contents into their daily life [19] . Specific mind-related transfer effects such as "increase of self-efficacy" and "improvement of stress management", which were the most frequently mentioned ones at tp1, were mentioned even more often at tp3 (see Table 2).…”

“…As reported in a previous study [19] , prior to course participation, many applicants consistently stated daily life-related expectations of their upcoming Taiji course: 41% of them expected improvement in their stress management and 14% expected counterbalance with their daily work as a result of course participation, while 27% explicitly mentioned expecting a high transferability of course content into their daily life. To some extent, these expectations have also been attested by Taiji teachers [19] .…”

“…To some extent, these expectations have also been attested by Taiji teachers [19] . Therefore we assumed that respective changes in participants' daily life would be reported after course completion.…”

“…While in most Taiji studies the methodological approach was based on quantitative analyses of specific outcome values, qualitative Taiji research investigating perceived benefits of Taiji practice is still scarce, yet slowly emerging [16] . Qualitative analyses of practitioners' and teachers' self-reports consistently demonstrated a wide range of perceived physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual effects of Taiji practice [16][17][18][19] . Even though the relevance of carrying over experience from Taiji classes into everyday life was mentioned in these publications, especially in the context of enhancing sustained self-reliant practice behavior, little is known about the nature of transfer effects, i.e., the perceived impact of an intervention on participants' daily life.…”

“…Narrative questionnaire data were systematically prepared and analyzed by using a qualitative or quantitative approach [19,35] . In the qualitative approach, content-specific information reflecting Taiji-induced changes in participants' daily life has been inductively classified into main and sub categories as follows:…”