Scheduled for Research Consortium Pedagogy II Poster Session, Thursday, April 27, 2006, 1:15 PM - 2:45 PM, Convention Center: Exhibit Hall Poster Area I


Effect of a Pedagogical Approach to a Sport Education Season on Sport Literacy

Derek J. Mohr1, J. Scott Townsend1, Sean M. Bulger2, Richard M. Rairigh3 and Clay Mohr4, (1)Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, (2)West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, (3)Meredith College, Raleigh, NC, (4)Avery Middle School, Newland, NC

Sport Education has received considerable support as an effective alternative for teaching school-based physical education. Sport Education has three primary learning outcomes: to educate students to be competent, literate, and enthusiastic sportspersons. The Pedagogical Approach to Sport Education (PASE) was proposed as a structured set of planning and instructional guidelines for designing, implementing, and assessing Sport Education seasons that promote student learning. Research concerning the PASE guidelines has focused primarily on student attitudes, health-related physical fitness, and motor skill acquisition. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of a PASE season on the sport literacy of middle-school students. Within the context of this study, sport literacy was defined as content knowledge pertaining to rules, game tactics, motor skill performance, and sport-specific conditioning. The participants included: (a) a pre-service physical educator who taught all of the instructional units, (b) two experienced cooperating teachers who provided instructional support and guidance for the student teacher, and (c) eighty-nine middle-school students who actively participated in the lessons across the entire intervention. The researchers employed a switching replications design in which students were stratified based on gender and initial skill level before random assignment to a designated treatment order. The students randomly assigned to the first treatment order participated in an eighteen lesson PASE basketball season (experimental condition) followed by nine lesson units in soccer and team handball that were delivered using a multi-activity approach (control condition). The students assigned to the second treatment order participated in the control condition followed by the experimental condition in an attempt to further account for any possible treatment order effect. Each student completed a basketball content knowledge written test at three occasions across the study (pre-, mid-, and post-test). A multivariate analysis of variance with a between-subjects independent variable (treatment order) and a within-subjects independent variable (testing occasion) indicated that there was both a significant main effect for testing occasion (p < .05) and interaction for treatment order and testing occasion (p < .05). Post hoc comparisons revealed that significant differences were found in content knowledge test scores both within- and between-groups for mid- and post-testing occasions. These results demonstrate that the PASE season was an effective instructional approach for enhancing student content knowledge acquisition and retention. The discussion describes suggested instructional strategies for improving sport literacy and guidelines for integrating tactical game play, rules and officiating, and concepts-based fitness into physical education programming.
Keyword(s): curriculum development, middle school issues, research

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