Traditional sports culture: a fun sport to change the physical literacy of junior handball athletes

Abstract

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the effects of traditional sports culture to change the level of physical literacy among junior handball athletes.
 Material and methods. This study applied an experimental method by using a pretest-posttest control group design. This study involved athletes from Bandung city (Indonesia) (n = 30) as participants. The recruitment process was conducted with a random technique through sending invitation via email. Participants were allocated to an experimental group (n=15) and a control group (n=15). Quantitative research instruments used physical literacy-movement competence domain, cognitive domain and affective domain. Data was analysis through IBM SPSS to test data normality, statistical descriptive (mean, standard deviation). Independent sample t-test was used to test differences in physical literacy scores before and after the experiment in the experimental and control groups. Meanwhile, the Paired sample t-test was used to test the effect of traditional sports culture towards changes in physical literacy levels in the experimental and control groups.
 Results. This study results show several findings. First, there was no significant difference in physical literacy between the experimental and control groups before receiving the experimental program (p>0.05). Second, there was a significant difference in physical literacy between the experimental and control groups after receiving the experimental program (p<0.05). Third, the experimental group proved to have an effect on changes in athletes' physical literacy levels (p<0.05), however there was no changes in the control group (p>0.05).
 Conclusions. Thus, this study confirms that traditional sports culture has proven to be effective in enhancing the physical literacy level of junior handball athletes. This research contributes to the development of physical literacy in athletes, which can be used in future to accelerate their achievements in handball and this research provides important information for coaches, teachers and lecturers about the importance of using traditional sports culture.