Game performance involves the interaction of tactical understanding and tactical use of skills and movement (Mitchell, Oslin, & Griffin, 2006). This study investigated how pre-service teachers' game performance competency affected their teaching practices in a soccer unit.
Method
Thirteen Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) students who enrolled in a secondary methods course voluntarily participated in this study. The first unit of the course was soccer. In the soccer unit, the participants initially participated in five two-hour lessons taught by the course instructor to learn essential soccer skills, tactics, and game rules and to learn content development, instructional strategies, and class management techniques simultaneously. After completing the lessons, the participants played a 10-minute 3 v 3 small-sided game for the course assessment, which was videotaped for this study. Next, each participant team or individually teach their peers one intact 50-minute lesson, which was videotaped. To collect data, two investigators independently coded two videotaped game plays with the Assessing Soccer Game Performance Competency Rubrics (ASGPCR) and they also coded the videotaped lessons for each teaching segment in a lesson with the Quality Teaching Assessment Rubrics (QTAR). After coding each lesson, the two investigators discussed what they observed and wrote significant incidences that occurred during each lesson. We used semi-structured interview questions to formally interview each participant, which was audio-taped and transcribed later and collected each participant's lesson and unit plans.
Analysis/Results
The means of the total game performance index in soccer was calculated to classify five participants into a high-game performance group and eight into a low performance group. The MANOVA were used to examine the differences of the four essential teaching dimensions and overall teaching between the groups. The MANOVA revealed a significant difference on responses between the two groups (F=16.97. p<.01). Analysis of the qualitative data indicated that the participants in the high-competency group easily detected students' errors, adjusted learning tasks and re-emphasized key features of the task spontaneously, and provided specific feedback related to an individual's ability level. In contrast, the participants with weak game performance seldom made contingency adjustments when needed and provided limited corrective feedback. Lastly, the results of the MANOVA indicated no significant difference on task design, instructions, and management between the groups (F=2.3, p>.10; F=.97, p>.10; F=1.0, p>1.0, respectively). The results were supported by the qualitative data.
Conclusions
Game performance competency contributed to the pre-service teacher's effectively responding to students' ongoing learning responses.
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