The purpose of this study was to examine the certification systems of the United States, Japan and Korea for golf instructors and the states of golf-related occupations in an effort to seek more specialized ways to nurture and manage golf instructors ...
The purpose of this study was to examine the certification systems of the United States, Japan and Korea for golf instructors and the states of golf-related occupations in an effort to seek more specialized ways to nurture and manage golf instructors and to determine some of the right directions for golf as a source of creating new, diverse occupations, not just as part of sports or of leisure life.
Relevant statistical and other data were analyzed, which were released as of 2005 by American, Japanese and Korean certificate-issuing bodies and job-related organizations, including the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Health, Labour & Welfare and Korea National Statistics Office. The subjects in this study were 63 golf instructors and 469 people who played golf. The golf instructors worked at indoor and outdoor golf practice ranges and fitness clubs in Seoul and Gyeonggi province as of 2005. Questionnaire method was employed to find out the certificate type of the instructors, their job preference, the people's awareness of the certificate type of their instructors, and their preference for that.
For data handling, Cronbach's a, frequency analysis, one-way ANOVA Tukey's posttest, cross-tabs and x2(Chi-square) test were utilized, and the level of significance was set at 5 percent to test the hypotheses formulated in the study. The findings of the study were as follows:
First, when the golf-related certificate issuing bodies of the United States, Japan and Korea were investigated, Korea had the largest number of organizations, which numbered 12. Among them, five were foreign bodies, and seven were Korean organizations. As for the types of golf-related jobs in the countries, approximately 130 thousand Americans, 2,870 thousand Japanese people and 240 thousand Koreans were engaged in the fields of sports, entertainment and workout, and there were 28, 7 and 14 types of golf-related occupations in the United States, Japan and Korea respectively. In the United States, the types of golf-related jobs were more classified than in Korea and Japan.
Second, concerning connections between the work places of the instructors and their certificates, the instructors who worked at indoor golf practice ranges held different certificates relatively evenly, but many of those who served at outdoor golf practice ranges were certified KPGA pros. The KPGA pros earned a larger monthly mean income, and the others didn't make a good income. As to the relationship of their certificates to their regret about their occupational choice, the instructors of the domestic bodies regretted becoming a golf instructor the most, and the gap between them and the others was statistically significant. Regarding their preference for golf-related jobs, college professors and college coaches were most preferred, followed by pro golfers, golf range general managers, marketers/advertisement agents and golf instructor managers. As to connections between their certificates and their job preference, the KPGA pros had the most preference for pro players, and the sports for all leaders and athletic coaches had the most liking for golf range general managers. Those who were certified as pros by domestic or international bodies were in favor of college professors or coaches the most.
As a result of asking whether or not they knew the sorts of Korean golf-related instructor certificates, those who were in their 40s were aware of the types of certificates the best, and by golfing career, those whose career was three years or less knew about them the best(p<.05). As for the relationship of gender and age to awareness of certificate- issuing organizations, their awareness of PGA, KPGA, USGTF and KTPGA was statistically significantly different according to their gender and age. Concerning relations between golfing career and awareness of the organizations, their golfing career made a statistically significant difference to their awareness of USGTF and PGTG and to the relevant awareness of sports for all leaders and athletic coaches(p<.05). Regarding how the people selected an instructor, both the men and women made a choice through the recommendations of their acquaintances the most, and as to their preference for certificates, they had the most preference for instructors certified by KPGA and foreign PGA.
Regarding the questions about instructors' contribution to target attainment, progress of instruction according to schedule, problem checking, attempt for new learning methods, encouragement of learners' understanding and sense of belonging, education of applied skills, efforts for preventing injuries and professional knowledge, the people had statistically significantly different opinions about them. As for the efficiency of instruction, they expressed a statistically significantly different satisfaction with the putting ability and crisis handling ability of instructors, their sense of responsibility, teaching method and technical instruction. Finally, whether or not the people were given information on the profile of their instructors, whether or not their instructors informed them of their acquired certificates, and what types of certificates they possessed were investigated, and they showed a statistically significant response to every question.
Third, as described above, Korea had more certificate-issuing bodies than the United States and Japan, and many instructors were produced eventually. But there's no guarantee about their actual teaching ability. In order to join the ranks of advanced nations in terms of golf and boost the ability of instructors, more systematic and rational training system is called for. To build an efficient training system, it seems advisable for each organization to issue one sort of authorized certificate only. The sports-related types of occupations should be more segmented, and junior colleges, universities and private educational institutes should offer golf-related departments to create more relevant jobs and nurture professionals. Besides, the government should try to improve the pay and working environments of golf-related workers.