Background/Purpose: Teacher candidates (TC) often experience Games Creation (GC) and instructional strategies during a PETE program. Limited research has investigated the impact these experiences have on teaching philosophies developed during occupational socialization (Lawson, 1986). The purpose of the study was to examine TC perceptions of GC before and after a 3-week unit.
Method: Thirty-four TC's (male 18/Female 16) completed a GC unit taught using a constructivist learning approach. The purpose of the unit was to theoretically and practically introduce TC's to GC as an appropriate instructional strategy for teaching physical education. Data sources included interviews, written responses, observations, and documents. Written responses and interview transcripts (30 interviews; 10 – 25 minutes) were analyzed using Open and Axial coding (Strauss and Corbin, 2008).
Analysis/Results: Three Themes were identified, outlook, instructional benefits, and complexity. Analysis illustrated a clear demarcation of perception by TC outlook. TC's who viewed the unit from a participant viewpoint questioned the effectiveness of GC to hold student's interest and impact learning. TC's who viewed the unit from a teacher perspective describe GC in terms of student learning outcomes and learning processes. Analysis also showed that TC's appropriately identified instructional benefits, and strongly acknowledged a previously implicit complexity when creating invasion games.
Conclusions: A TC's outlook as they experienced the unit influenced their perceptions, values and teaching philosophies regarding possible implementation. If PETE programs hope to influence TC socialized perceptions of instruction and learning it is important to understand and appropriately facilitate TC journey from student to teacher.