Effect of traditional dances on physiological variables among high school students in Ethiopia

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of Tigray Traditional dances on selected physiological variables among high school students. To achieve the purpose of this study, 100 high school students were selected randomly. The selected subjects were categorized into experimental group (Awris, Hura, Kuda and Shediva) and control group, with twenty subjects in each group (n=20). The experimental groups performed Traditional dances for a period of 16 weeks three days per week whereas participants in the control group were informed to follow their usual activity. All subjects were tested on selected criterion measures of selected physiological variables namely resting heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure prior to and after the 16 weeks of the training period. The data pertaining to the variables in this study were statistically examined by using ANOVA for each variable separately, whenever ‘F’ ratio of adjusted post-test was found to be significant, the Scheffe’s test was used to determine the paired mean differences. The level of significance was fixed at 0.05. Following the training program, significant change was observed on resting heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure as compare the experimental group with the control group. Therefore it can be concluded that Tigray Traditional dance training program can notably improve physiological variables of high school students.