Basketball Content Knowledge: Playing, Coaching, and Teaching Experience

Thursday, April 25, 2013: 12:25 PM
202AB (Convention Center)
Weidong Li1, Phillip Ward1, Harry Lehwald1, Paul T. Stuhr2, James Ressler3, Elena Boiarskaia4 and Sue Sutherland1, (1)The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, (2)California State University–San Marcos, San Marcos, CA, (3)Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, (4)University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL

Background/Purpose Content knowledge (CK) is a foundation for effective teaching. Ward (2009) has conceptualized CK into four domains: knowledge of (a) rules and etiquette, (b) techniques and tactics, (c) student errors, and (d) instructional tasks and representations. There are few instruments to measure CK and how CK varies as a function of playing, coaching, and teaching experience is unknown. This study validated a Basketball Content Knowledge Test (BCKT) and examined how CK varies as a function of playing, coaching and teaching experience.

Method Participants were 277 in-service physical education (PE) teachers and college students majoring in PE and other areas, who completed demongraphic survey and BCKT online.

Analysis/Results Content validity of BCKT was established by a panel of experts. Psychometric quality of BCKT items was examined using two-facet Rasch analysis. Results showed good model-data fit according to Infit and Outfit statistics, well spread difficulty (-2.07 to 2.74 logits) and students' basketball knowledge (2.68 to -2.58 logits). MANOVA was conducted to examine how four CK domains varied as a function of gender, playing, coaching and teaching experience in basketball. Overall MANOVA analysis showed that basketball CK significantly varied by gender and league playing experience. Males and those with more league playing experience scored better on domains a, b, and c, thus further supporting validity of BCKT.

Conclusions Findings from this study can be used to identify strengths and weaknesses of pre-service and in-service teachers' basketball CK knowledge, thus facilitating the development and refinement of effective interventions to increase their teaching effectiveness.

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