Effects of Learning Injury Prevention in Judo Classes of Junior High School: Focus on Learning the Front-rolling Ukemi Performed by Female Junior High School Students of First Grade

This study aims to verify the effects of learning injury prevention in junior high school judo classes. The education group that learned about injury prevention was compared with the non-education group. The following measures were used: (1) a questionnaire survey（with items on safe behavior, the responsiveness of accident, escape feeling from judo, the skill of the ukemi); (2) evaluation of the front-rolling ukemi; and (3) learning reports of the danger prediction and avoidance in the education group. The main results were as follows: (1) A two-way analysis of variance indicated that there were main effects on every subject in both groups. Furthermore, safe behavior interactions were observed in the education group (p < .05). (2) According to quantitative text analysis, regarding the difficult points of the front-rolling ukemi, “head” and “shoulder” were reported in the non-education group but not in the education group. (3) A quantitative text analysis indicated that when students did the front-rolling ukemi, they predicted situations in which their shoulder and head were likely to touch the tatami mat. Therefore, they answered “shoulder” and “head” regarding danger avoidance. In conclusion, this study suggests that learning injury prevention improves students’ ability, leading to injury prevention in judo classes.