Pedagogical content knowledge for model-based instruction: an assessment of teaching games for understanding and sport education in physical education & sports coaching

This thesis includes seven peer reviewed publications focused on alternative, constructivist forms of games teaching instruction within both physical education and sports coaching environments. The research aimed to establish the pedagogic challenges associated with teaching and learning alternative forms of instruction as well as designing, validating and implementing a specific games teaching observation system, termed: The System for Observing the Teaching of Games in Physical Education (SOTG-PE). The qualitative data revealed that teaching and learning alternative constructivist forms of instruction, such as Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) and Sport Education (SE) can be difficult and challenging for both student teachers, Initial Teacher Education (ITE) tutors, sports coaches and members of the coach education workforce. Specifically, the sports coaches reported concerns surrounding conceptual, pedagogical, cultural and political dilemmas associated with learning selected constructivist principles. These included a lack of pedagogic content knowledge, maintaining a 'true' constructivist approach, negative implications in the coach/athlete relationship and a shortage of professional development opportunities. In comparison, the ITE tutors openly expressed philosophical concerns surrounding the constructivist nature of SE. They rejected the student centered nature of SE, and found difficulty in coping with a number of the pedagogic requirements. The quantitative data revealed that ITE students were motivated by the potential marriage of both TGfU and SE, however, this supposition requires additional support. There was a significant increase in student motivation from pre- intervention to post (p .92, lesson context p> .93 and teacher intera ti 8 c tons p <. 9). Spearman's rank order correlations revealed a significant 1 ..,,----- positive relationship between student inactivity and general management (r = .62,p < .01). There were also significant negative relationships between student inactivity and locomotion (r = 0.-78,p < .05), motor response (r =.-60,p < .05), and full-game (r =.-49,p < .05). A significant positive relationship was found between motor response and applied skill practice (r = .52, P < .02). There was also a significant positive relationship between technical practice and motor/locomotion (r = .41, P < .02) and verbally promoting technical behaviour (r = .49p < .05). A significant inverse association was observed between verbally promoting tactical behaviour and technical practice (r =.-48, p < .05), however a significant positive relationship was found between verbally promoting tactical behaviour and modified game (r = .46,p < .01). There were no significant differences in the percentage of time the pupils were engaged in the various pupil activity codes across various games categories. However, there were significant differences in the time spent in the warm up (X2 (2) 12.0,p = .02), general management (X2 (2) 8.18,p = .01), technical practice (t (2) 4.81,p = .01), applied skill practice (X2 (2) 8.33,p = .01) and modified game (X2 (2) 4.80,p = .01). Teacher interactions also differed significantly between various games categories with teachers preferring to promote verbal technical behaviour (X2 (2) = 8.18, P < .05), more often than verbal tactical behaviour (X2 (2) = 7.41, P <.05). It is clear from the qualitative data that constructivist principles are difficult to learn and teach. The findings from the systematic observational studies appear to support this supposition as there was little evidence to support the use of modified games and selected constructivist principles.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo