The purpose of this study was to independently determine the levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and self-determined motivation of both boys and girls as they participated in prolonged units of invasion games (i.e. 6-12 lessons) through two pedagogical models: direct instruction and the tactical games model (TGM). It was…

The aim of the current study was to provide descriptions of the nature of pre-service primary teachers' reflection during their student teaching experience. The principal research question that guided the investigation was "what do these pre-service classroom teachers reflect on during their teaching and how is this reflection related to…

Previous studies have found that student teachers value the practicum over other parts of physical education teacher education and that they experience a gap between theory and practice in their education. The purpose of this study was to provide more knowledge about the theory-practice relations in the context of the practicum of physical…

The purpose of the study was to implement a Sport Education season designed to be mastery-involving and examine the degree of congruence between the objective measure of the presented climate with the students' perceptions of the saliency of this motivational climate. Twenty-one male high school students (mean age of 15.9 years) and one…

This paper describes several practical activities that reveal how complex and nonlinear pedagogies might underpin primary physical education and school sport lessons. These sample activities, involving track and field, tennis and netball components, are designed to incorporate states of stability and instability through the modification of task…

Validating selected theoretical assumptions associated with the Spectrum of Teaching Styles is critical to the pursuit of knowledge about effective instructional strategies. To assess these styles, a total of 77 college-aged students at one university enrolled in four physical activity classes and participated in three 50-minute lessons with…

Over 30 years ago the original teaching games for understanding (TGfU) proposition was published in a special edition of the Bulletin of Physical Education (Bunker and Thorpe, 1982). In that time TGfU has attracted significant attention from a theoretical and pedagogical perspective as an improved approach to games and sport teaching in physical…

Advances in technology have created new opportunities for enhanced delivery of teaching to improve the acquisition of game skills in physical education (PE). The availability of a motion-tracking system (i.e. the A-Eye), which determines positional information of students in a practice context, might offer a suitable technology to support…

This paper explores the tacit expert knowledge and understanding about games curriculum and pedagogy of three men, Len Almond, David Bunker, and Rod Thorpe, credited as the founders of the Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) model. The model emerged from teacher practice in the late 1970s and was little theorized at the time, apart from a…

The purposes of this study were twofold: to examine the effects of a community of practice (CoP) on (1) physical educators' and their students' health-related fitness content knowledge and (2) the physical educators' health-related fitness pedagogical content knowledge construction process. Twelve experienced physical education teachers (six in…

Technology can support teaching, learning and assessment in physical education. The purpose of this study was to examine children's perspectives and experiences of using digital video in primary physical education. The impact on motivation, feedback, self-assessment and learning was examined. Twenty-three children aged 9-10 years participated…

Motivation to learn is a disposition developed through exposure to learning opportunities. Guided by the expectancy-value theory of Eccles and Wigfield (1995), this study examined the extent to which expectancy belief and task value influenced elementary school students' physical activity and knowledge learning in physical education (PE).…

Research has revealed that while pre-service teachers (PTs) with coaching orientations reinforce sexism and masculine bias, those with teaching orientations combat and reject it. The purpose of this study was to examine four sport education (SE) seasons taught by two experienced in-service teachers for the presence or absence of sexism and…

Tikunoff, Ward & Lazar (1980) argue that parity or "equality of status" (p.12) is one of the most important ingredients of successful collaboration. During the placement of students on teaching practice (TP), therefore, it can be argued that school and university personnel should be equal partners if the collaboration is to be effective. This…

A hybrid Sport Education (SE) and Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) pedagogical model shifts responsibilities to students and enhances game play by focusing on tactical problems. The purpose of this study was to (1) examine pre-service teachers' (PTs) perceptions teaching a SE-TGfU hybrid; and (2) identify facilitators and inhibitors that…