Sportcasting in Physical Education (Lee, 2011) is a class activity that students simulate sports broadcasting (e.g., students report, analyze, and comment on game play). It encourages problem solving (PS) learning for students. Scaffolding is the support with the intention of helping the student achieves his/her learning goals and contributes to problem solving (Sawyer, 2006). One of the main benefits of scaffolding is that it provides for a supportive learning environment. It was hypothesized that Sportcasting will be effective in a scaffolded learning environment, because students are free to ask questions, provide feedback and support their peers in sport-related tasks. However, limited studies have examined if sportcasting with scaffolding is effective instructional strategies for PS. The purpose of this study was to examine effects of sportcasting with scaffolding on PS abilities, and on academic achievement.
Method:
Participants were 46 college students. The static-group comparison design was used: an experiment group (M=13, F=13) with supportive scaffoldings (e.g., conceptual explanation, terminology dictionary, visual materials) and a control group (M=10, F=10) with reflective scaffoldings (e.g., organizing the environment, using appropriate cues to guide behaviors, and modeling). Group homogeneity was checked before experiment. This study continued for 8 weeks through blended learning on volleyball. Class activities include skill learning (1st and 2nd week), modified game play (2nd through 6th week), game analysis using video clips (7th week), writing a script for 4 minute broadcasting (7th week), and broadcasting using the script and four minute video clip showing volleyball in a class (8th week). Students’ academic achievement [Volleyball Test Kit (KICE, 2006)] and PS abilities [Process Behavior Survey (Lee, 1998)] were measured on the 9th week.
Analysis/Results:
Two-way ANOVA was conducted to analyze the data. There was no interaction (Gender X Group) effect. The results revealed that students in reflective scaffoldings had higher PS abilities (M=81.15, SD=8.96) than students in supportive scaffoldings (M=64.23, SD=8.78). However, two groups were not statistically different in academic achievement. Gender main effect was found in PS abilities that male students scored higher than female.
Conclusions:
Sportcasting with instructional scaffolding promote a deeper level of cognitive skills and male students performed better than female students. The effective scaffolding strategies (Lewis, 2010) for sportscasting were discussed to help students to foster PS skills in terms of content knowledge, epistemic practices, collaboration and self-directed learning