Despite the advent of tactical approaches to teaching sport games (e.g., Teaching Games for Understanding; TGfU), traditional ‘direct instruction’ approaches dominated by skill and drill practice remain prevalent in physical education. The latter tend to result in high levels of inactivity for students (Roberts & Fairclough, 2011). Consequently, better understanding is needed on how tactical approaches can contribute to students reaching the 50% criterion level of health-enhancing moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) for physical education classes (Institute of Medicine [IOM], 2013).
Method:
Participants for this study were 87 students from three separate physical education classes (n=24, 27, and 36, respectively) at one middle school in the Western United States. 24-lessons (n=8 per class) of TGfU-based soccer (M=34.43mins; SD=3.72) were taught by a licensed teacher/soccer coach with expertise in the TGfU approach. Data on students’ physical activity (PA) levels and lesson context were collected using the System of Observing Fitness Instruction Time (McKenzie, 2012). Teacher behavior data were collected using the West Virginia Teaching Evaluation System (Hawkins & Wiegand, 1989) in order to encapsulate a greater range of behaviors than possible with SOFIT. Inter-observer agreement checks conducted throughout (i.e., 12.5% of the total lessons) met specified agreement levels (i.e., over 80%) across all categories. TGfU implementation fidelity was assessed using Turner & Martinek’s (1999) validation protocol. Percentages of the total number of observed intervals were calculated, from which an average percentage was revealed across the three separate behavior categories.
Analysis/Results:
Students’ mean MVPA was 57.21% (SD=11.26%), thus exceeding the IOM’s (2013) 50% criterion. Time in VPA averaged 16.83% (SD=7.53) suggesting that students were also able to attain over five minutes of VPA per class, slightly higher than previously reported (Fairclough & Stratton, 2005). These high MVPA and VPA levels were due to the fact that the students spent a large amount of time in game play (M=58.82[10.37]) when compared to knowledge (M=23.81%[8.76]) and management (M=17.38%[7.55]) contexts. Although spending nearly a quarter of time managing the class (M=25.07%[9.60]), teacher behavior analyses demonstrated that the teacher used active supervision techniques such as general (M=26.88%[10.94]) and tactical (M=16.24%[6.21]) instruction interspersed with periods of general (M=9.34%[3.45]) and specific observation (M=3.33%[1.90]) to ensure students engaged in the content being delivered and were not ‘just playing games’.
Conclusions:
TGfU approaches can contribute to students’ accumulating recommended MVPA levels in physical education, thus providing an appropriate context for fostering game play skills and health-enhancing physical activity.