Information And Communication Technology (Ict) Integrated Into Physical Education (Pe) Lessons: Learning And Teaching Perspectives

Background: New technology has come to be regarded as an integral part of sport practice today. Although PE teachers regularly question the value of conventional teaching aids with respect to students’ motivation and motor... [ view full abstract ]

Background: New technology has come to be regarded as an integral part of sport practice today. Although PE teachers regularly question the value of conventional teaching aids with respect to students’ motivation and motor learning (Thomas & Stratton, 2007), few of them integrate ICT into the PE lessons. The purpose of this presentation is to present an integrative model which has been tested regarding the impact of ICT on pupils’ motivation, knowledge and skills in PE (Legrain et al., 2015).  

Methods: Ninety-six pupils (44 boys and 52 girls; Mage = 12.40 years) were assigned to either the ICT or the traditional teaching (TT) condition of a quasi-experimental design. Due to the relatively small sample size, the proposed model was specified as a path analysis, using the robust maximum likelihood method with EQS 6.1 (Bentler, 1993). It contained four exogenous variables (i.e., the experimental condition, teacher’s autonomy support, pre-test basic need satisfaction, and pre-test motor performance) and four endogenous variables (i.e., post-test basic need satisfaction, self-determined motivation, cognitive skills, and motor performance).

Results: Results showed that an ICT environment led to higher psychological need satisfaction, specifically when pupils perceived the learning process was conducted by a perceived autonomy-supportive teacher during gymnastics lessons. Results from path-analyses supported the hypotheses that (a) perception of autonomy support from teachers satisfies students’ basic psychological needs; (b) basic needs satisfaction, in turn leads to greater self-determined motivation, which (c) then contributes to the enhancement of cognitive skills and motor performance.

Conclusions: This study suggests that the integration of ICT could be an interesting alternative strategy to enhance children’s self-determined motivation for learning, and thus help them acquire new motor skills. These results are discussed with regard to disciplinary and transdisciplinary educational challenges. Pedagogical precautions for teacher training are also addressed with regard to teachers’ professional needs.