Physical education: How to increase reflections in the social domain

Physical education (PE) is a socially constructed (Berger & Luckmann, 1984; Burr, 2015) subject that have the possibility to contribute to young people’s development in the physical, social, affective and cognitive domain... [ view full abstract ]

Physical education (PE) is a socially constructed (Berger & Luckmann, 1984; Burr, 2015) subject that have the possibility to contribute to young people’s development in the physical, social, affective and cognitive domain (Bailey et al., 2009). Research found that Norwegian PETE-teachers at University level gave rather traditional lessons (Moen & Green, 2012) and by that giving no emphasis on students’ development of social skills and reflections.

Our study investigated undergraduate PETE students’ social reflections and experiences with a) traditional didactics (with instruction method and emphasis on performance outcome) and b) Constraints-based Didactic (CBD) (with emphasis on a non-linear pedagogy) (Loftesnes, 2016) so that the subjects would be able to see both didactic approaches. Students experiences was given two questions; 1)  which didactic gave most reflections regarding their own and others behaviour, and 2) which didactic gave most reflections regarding the connection between emotions, thoughts and behaviour.

Method: 96 undergraduate PETE-students (36% female) participated over a period of three weeks and were divided into two groups learning basketball. Group 1 participated in three double practical lessons using traditional didactics/teaching style followed by one double practical lesson of CBD. Group 2 was given three double lessons of CBD followed by one double lesson using traditional didactic/teaching style. The intervention for increasing the student’s reflections was added explicitly in the CBD lessons. Result scores, didactic style preference and level of social reflections were plotted using SPSS (2016).

Result: In questions one, most students preferred CBD (n=71) contra traditional didactics (n=18). In questions two most students preferred CBD (N=67) contra traditional didactic (N=21).

Discussion: The students reported a higher level of reflections in the social domain within CBD. If a goal in physical education is to general educate students (Annerstedt, 2007; Ommundsen, 2016), one should consider explicit learning regarding reflections towards the social domain.