Developing an Instrument to Evaluate the OLI Olympic Education Program in Turkey: Case Study of Implementation

Abstract

The goal of the ‘Olympic Movement’ is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practices with Olympism and its values. To contribute to the Olympic Movement; Culture and Olympic Education Commission of Turkish NOC, has prepared an interactive Olympic education project called “OLI†since 2009, which reached 3 million students. It is very important to develop a means to analyze if the Olympic education program OLI fullfills its aims. Therefore the research question of this study is “What are the principal aims of the OLI program and how can we develop an evaluation procedure to assess the extent to which these aims are achieved?†A sample group was a class of students (n=33) who participated in the OLI education. The methodology of the study included developing the survey from the context of education given to evaluate the program. Before and after case study was conducted to the students. The questions developed were related to knowledge about the modern Olympic Games and knowledge of attitudes associated with, Olympic values and Olympism. According to the results of the survey; the OLI project increased the knowledge about Modern Olympic Games and the knowledge of attitudes associated with, Olympic values and Olympism. The importance of the study was that; even though there is a wide range of approaches to Olympic education programs, there is indeed no detailed evaluation methods. With this study; an approach which is short, sharp, feasible and something which can be used relatively easy to implement was developed.

Keywords: Olympic education; olympic movement; olympism; primary education