The role of tourist activities in forming the personality of adolescent pupils

ABSTRACT

The present study aims to contribute to the improvement and modeling of the adolescents’ optional extracurricular activities of physical education and sport through the experimental introduction of a program of tourist activities able to contribute to the formation of their personality. In order to demonstrate the efficiency of tourist activities on the physical, psychical and social accomplishment of the adolescent pupil, we elaborated a program with a specific content that was applied during a research achieved with the participation of two high school classes, during the school year 2004-2005. From the viewpoint of their structure and homogeneity, both the experimental group and the reference group included 28 subjects, boys and girls aged between 16 and 17. The results of the application of the curriculum mentioned above were interpreted based on the initial and final evaluation, based on the parameters that define the psychomotricity at this age, the social climate of the group and of the interpersonal relations during the tourist activities, and a survey concerning their opinion on the role of these activities in the formation of the teenager’s personality features. The research underlined the fact that the forms of tourism proposed as part of the extracurricular educative program led to a significant progress of the experimental group, as it showed a better level of the researched parameters in comparison with the reference group. Key words: formation, personality, extracurricular activities, tourist activities.