Research Article Getting Started with Taiji: Investigating Students Expectations and Teachers Appraisals of Taiji Beginners Courses

Copyright © 2012 Marko Nedeljkovic et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In recent years, Taiji has been frequently investigated and considered as a stress management intervention. Although health care providers ’ appraisals and consumers ’ expectations are regarded as essential for treatment outcome, little attention has been drawn to this issue in Taiji research. In our study we have conducted two surveys to explore beginners ’ (n = 74) expectations and teachers’ (n = 136) appraisals of their Taiji courses in general as well as more particularly related to stress management. Qualitative data analysis revealed that beginners mainly expected to learn a new method that is applicable in their daily life to foster peace of mind and to enhance their stress management. Congruently moderate-to-high improvements in stress management have also been found in quantitative analysis, whereby a lower educational level predicted higher expectations (P = 0.016). Taiji-teachers stated body- and mind-related benefits most frequently and appraised moderate-to-high improvements in stress management. Higher appraisals were predicted by a shorter teaching experience (P = 0.024). Our results inform about beginners ’ expectations an