Description:
This paper contributes to research on the scholarship of teaching in the physical education/sport studies fields by examining the responses of study abroad students from overseas studying in Australia to a unit of study in sport studies that placed the interpretation of experience as the centre of the learning process. It draws on research conducted at an Australian university over an 18-month period and involving 170 participants. The study focused on the ways in which student motivations, inclinations, expectations and prior experience interacted with experiences of living in Australia and the experience-based nature of the unit of study shaped their responses and perceptions of learning.
Description:
This paper contributes to research on the scholarship of teaching in the physical education/sport studies fields by examining the responses of study abroad students from overseas studying in Australia to a unit of study in sport studies that placed the interpretation of experience as the centre of the learning process. It draws on research conducted at an Australian university over an 18-month period and involving 170 participants. The study focused on the ways in which student motivations, inclinations, expectations and prior experience interacted with experiences of living in Australia and the experience-based nature of the unit of study shaped their responses and perceptions of learning.
Description:
Davis and Sumara (2003) argue that differences between commonsense assumptions about learning and those upon which constructivism rests present a significant challenge for the fostering of constructivist approaches to teaching in schools. Indeed, as Rink (2001) suggests, initiating any change process for teaching method needs to involve some understanding of the theories supporting it. Although there has been considerable discussion about constructivism in the physical education literature over the past decade, there has been less attention paid to the assumptions about learning and knowledge that underpin it. This article makes a contribution toward redressing this oversight in the literature by examining the epistemology and assumptions about learning that constructivist theories of learning rest upon. Drawing on the work of Davis and Sumara (2003), I suggest that the term "complex" learning theories may offer a more useful description of the sometimes confusing range of constructivist approaches. I provide examples of, and suggestions for, the application of constructivism in practice and within which the body forms a prominent theme.
Description:
This article reports on a case study that inquired into the influence of the New South Wales Primary Schools Sports Association competitive swimming structure on the development of talented 12-year old female swimmers. The study focused on ten 12-year old girls in the New South Wales team that contested the 2009 national swimming championships with results considered within the framework of Cote´’s Development Model of Sport Participation.
Description:
This article reports on a case study that inquired into the influence of the New South Wales Primary Schools Sports Association competitive swimming structure on the development of talented12-year old female swimmers. The study focused on ten 12-year old girls in the New South Wales team that contested the 2009 national swimming championships with results considered within the framework of Cote´’s Development Model of Sport Participation.
Description:
Bourdieu's concept of habitus has increasing been used in research in the sports coaching field and offers a useful concept for understanding how experience comes to shape coaching practice. In this article, we begin by outlining the use of habitus in the sports coaching literature and provide a brief description of it and its relationship with his other other key concepts: practice and field. We then examine the potential use of habitus in research on coach development, in which we argue for its importance for research on coach development. We close by exploring its its use as a methodological tool and how it can be operationalised and used in conjunction with other constructionist concepts.
Description:
There is a growing body of research focusing on women in the business sector using a transformational model of leadership that identifies the ways in which they lead yet little is known about the style of leadership women practise in sport. In attempting to redress this oversight in the literature, this article draws on data from a larger study to identify how women practise leadership within a sporting context. It identifies the leadership styles of women working at the community (club and regional) and elite (state and national) sectors of the Australian sport system in the state of Victoria as being feminine but which appropriate aspects of masculine styles. It also suggests that the women's early experiences of growing up played a significant part in shaping their leadership styles.
Description:
Game Sense is an exciting and innovative approach to coaching and physical education that places the game at the heart of the session. It encourages the player to develop skills in a realistic context, to become more tactically aware, to make better decisions and to have more fun. Game Sense is a comprehensive, research-informed introduction to the Game Sense approach that defines and explores key concepts and essential pedagogical theory, and that offers an extensive series of practical examples and plans for using Game Sense in real teaching and coaching situations
Description:
The rapid growth of research on Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) over the past decade has paid little attention to research methodology. This paper redresses this lack of attention to research methods and reports on a study conducted on children's personal experiences of Game Sense. The study focuses on the use of year six students' drawings as the primary source of data. Using this data we examine the affective dimensions of learning in a unit of work on cricket that was taught using a Game Sense approach. The children's drawings were used as a meaning making activity and then later used in a research interview where they provided the stimulus for children to discuss their attitudes and feelings toward their cricket experience. By adopting an interpretive approach the study gained insight into students' experiences and reports specifically on the impact Game Sense pedagogy had on the students with the least positive attitudes toward sport. Both the methodological innovation of the study and the positive impact upon the affective dimension of learning are discussed.
Description:
Aim. This article reports on a case study that inquired into how coaches' beliefs about and dispositions toward coaching that structure their practice were developed through long-term experience. Method. Focused on three coaches working at high performance levels in Victoria, Australia data was generated through three rounds of semi-structured interviews and observation over a three-month period. Results. The three coaches were from three diferent countries with the study highlighting the powerful influence of socio-cultural context on the construction of a coaching habitus and the ways in which it structurted their coaching.
Description:
Aim. This article reports on a case study that inquired into how coaches' beliefs about and dispositions toward coaching that structure their practice were developed through long-term experience. Method. Focused on three coaches working at high performance levels in Victoria, Australia data was generated through three rounds of semi-structured interviews and observation over a three-month period. Results. The three coaches were from three diferent countries with the study highlighting the powerful influence of socio-cultural context on the construction of a coaching habitus and the ways in which it structurted their coaching.
Description:
In addition to playing an important role in combating lifestyle diseases such as obesity, participation in youth sport provides opportunities to develop skills and competencies in sport and in life-long social, moral, and personal development (Light, 2008; Georgakis & Russell, 2011). In countries that have well-developed clubs, youth sports systems such as those in Australia, the UK, Canada, Germany, and Portugal attract children and young people to sports and keep them participating. It presents a challenge for government bodies with youths (particularly females) beginning to drop out of sports at the age of 13. Patterns of sport participation are different between boys and girls with the rate of female participation significantly lower than their male peers. While attention has been paid to dropout and burnout (Fraser-Thomas, Côté, & Deakin, 2008), less attention has been paid to the reasons why girls continue involvement in sport. This study redresses this oversight in the literature by evoking the trajectories of young female athletes in sport from their first steps in sport up to their present situation as adult, competitive players. The study focuses on the experiences of six female athletes aged between 20 and 22 who participate in basketball, volleyball, and judo.
Description:
This article draws on Game Sense pedagogy and complex learning theory (CLT) to make suggestions for improving decision-making ability in team sports by adopting a holistic approach to coaching with a focus on decision-making 'at-action'. It emphasizes the complexity of decision-making and the need to focus on the game as a whole entity, where players, individually and collectively, attempt to manage disorder in the face of an opposition. It rejects the complicated, mechanistic approach to learning and cognitivist views that dominate the literature on decision-making in team sports that see it as being a linear process of conscious thinking limited to the individual mind. It offers an alternative, holistic view grounded in a practical example of how this might be achieved in coaching rugby union football and theorized within a CLT framework.
Description:
This article draws on Game Sense pedagogy and complex learning theory (CLT) to make suggestions for improving decision-making ability in team sports by adopting a holistic approach to coaching with a focus on decision-making 'at-action'. It emphasizes the complexity of decision-making and the need to focus on the game as a whole entity, where players, individually and collectively, attempt to manage disorder in the face of an opposition. It rejects the complicated, mechanistic approach to learning and cognitivist views that dominate the literature on decision-making in team sports that see it as being a linear process of conscious thinking limited to the individual mind. It offers an alternative, holistic view grounded in a practical example of how this might be achieved in coaching rugby union football and theorized within a CLT framework.
Description:
Student-centred, inquiry-based approaches to teaching games are effective for improving game playing ability, increasing student motivation and providing positive affective experiences of learning (see, for example, Kirk 2005; Mitchell, Oslin and Griffin 1995; Pope 2005). Consistent with social contructivist theories of learning (see, for example, Fosnot 1996; Gréhaigne, Richard and Griffin 2005; Wallian and Chang 2007), the central role that dialogue, reflection and purposeful social interaction play in facilitating learning in these approaches can promote deep understanding (Light, Curry and Mooney in press) and make learning meaningful. Through these experiences students/players/athletes not only learn the content of the lesson or practice session but also learn how to learn and develop a positive inclination towards learning. The modes of learning employed in Game Sense and other game-based approaches (GBA) can generate positive intellectual and affective experiences of learning that foster an enjoyment of learning, confidence in the learners' ability and inclination to learn as they develop into independent learners: not just in sport and physical education but also in most areas of life.
Description:
Sport as we know it today finds its origins in nineteenth-century schools of the middle classes of England, where it was explicitly articulated as a medium for the socio-moral development of the future leaders of society (Mangan 1982). Despite massive social and economic changes since then, the idea of using sport as a means of developing 'character' and other positive social learning, such as learning to work in a team, has formed an enduring justification for the provision of sport for young people in schools and in sports clubs, in both western and non-western settings (see, for example, Sherington 1983; Light 2000). Despite a more recent and popular view of sport as a useful means of combating lifestyle diseases such as obesity (see, for example, Gard and Wright 2009), and growing awareness of how children's and youth sport can be corrupted by the influence of elite-level professional sport, assumptions about positive socio-moral learning occuring for young people through playing sport have proven to be remarkable resilient (see, for example, Holt 2009).