Wii lär oss dansa? : Om dansspel, rörelsekvaliteter och lärande i idrott och hälsa

Few studies have focused on how learning takes place in physical education and health (PEH) practices, and even more so in relation to artifact use. Dance is a core content in the Swedish curriculum, but according to previous research it nevertheless rarely occurs in practice due to many teachers’ lack of knowledge. Movement qualities are something that students are supposed to develop in the subject, where dance can be used as a form of activity. The aim of the licentiate thesis is to examine students’ use and development of different movement qualities in a learning process where dance exergames are used as teaching aids in the PEH practice in upper secondary school. The research questions in the study are: (1) what kind of movement qualities do students use when they interact with each other and with dance exergames, and (2) how does the learning of movement qualities occur when dance exergames are used as teaching aids? A series of seven PEH-lessons were designed. Four of the lesson had a spe-cific purpose, such as working with rhythm and coordination where the exergames Nintendo Wii Just Dance 3 and 4 were used as teaching aids. In two other lessons the students worked in groups to create their own dances, and as a final goal, at lesson seven, the groups presented their dances. All the lessons were video recorded. A framework inspired by Laban’s movement analysis was used to analyze the students’ movement qualities, based on four aspects: body, space, effort and relationship. To be able to analyze the students, the dance exergames and the context as a whole, the study involved a socio-cultural ap-proach to learning. Learning situations in the ongoing practice were also ana-lyzed, where learning was investigated as something that occurs through inter-actions between students and between students and artifacts. The results show a way to describe students’ movement qualities, which con-tribute to PEH-teachers language of knowledge in movement. The results also demonstrate that learning occurred through imitation, repetition, communica-tion, negotiation, practice, modeling, instruction and using metaphors. A con-clusion is that students’ use and development of movement qualities do not depend on the use of the dance exergames per se, instead it depends on how the dance exergames are used in PEH practice.Forskningslinjen Utbildnin