Some Considerations for Recreation in a Changing Society

Achievement goal theory, as an attempt to explain the factors that influence motivated behavior, has received signiticant attention from youth sport researchers, sport psychologists, and educators since its proposal in 1980. This papr reviews the basic tenets of achievement goal theory and outlines potential problems through its usage in attempting lo understand student behavior and attitudes in physical education. Specifically, I argue this reductionist and decontextualized research treats the physical education student as a motivational problem, the teacher as the solution, and the social context of physical education and sport as nonproblematic. This positivist approach to knowledge construction may indirectly act to perpetuate inequitable power relations and dominant idenlogies found in physical education. Ironically, this could dissuade certain youth from participating in sport or physical education, the antithesis of the activity promotion objectives of many achievement goal theorists. I conclude by suggesting to enhance physical education practice, research should employ critical and reflective methods of knowing and continue to seek out student and teacher voices to help create responsive leaming environments for diverse student needs.     

Competition in Physical Education: Avoid,Ask, Adapt or Accept?

Competition is an essential part of youth sport. But should it also be part of the curriculum in physical education? Or are competitive activities incompatible with the educational context? While some researchers have argued that physical education should embrace the sporting logic of competition, others have criticized the negative experiences it can create for some students in school. In this article, we draw on insights from the philosophy of sport as well as educational philosophy, with the aim of questioning and critically examining the integration of competitive activities in physical education. We present and discuss four normative arguments (AVOID, ASK, ADAPT, and ACCEPT) that can each in their own way inform and guide future talks on the topic.     

The social construction of pedagogic discourse in physical education teacher education in Australia

Abstract

Once the exclusive domain of teacher education, physical education in Australian tertiary institutions has during the last twenty years evolved into a series of discipline‐based fields concerned with human movement studies, leisure studies and sport science that have begun to feed new vocational opportunities in the sport, exercise and leisure industries. Concomitant with these changes in the social organization of knowledge in tertiary physical education has been a realignment of school physical education programmes, particularly in the senior school curriculum. Inevitably, the once sole focus of physical education in tertiary institutions on teacher education is now being forced to reinvent itself in light of these dynamic changes in the social organization of school and university knowledge. Following the work of Bernstein, Goodson and others, this article analyses current policy and practice in physical education teacher education and identifies several future scenarios. The first part of the article provides an historical overview of the emergence of new forms of tertiary knowledge in physical education from the mid‐1970s until the present. The second part provides a similar overview of developments in school physical education with a focus on senior school and matriculation physical education during the same period. The third part analyses the current state of affairs in the social organization of knowledge for physical education teacher education. In the fourth part, a series of questions is raised concerning relationships between knowledge in physical education teacher education, school physical education and university forms of the field through the presentation of several future scenarios. The article concludes with several proposals for policy development concerned with physical education teacher education programmes.     

Predicting First Graders’ Social Competence from Their Preschool Classroom Interpersonal Context

Research Findings: This study investigates contributions of the preschool classroom interpersonal environment to students’ social competence in 1st grade. Participants were 862 ethnically/racially diverse children who attended public preschool classrooms serving low-income families. Systematic observations of 60 classrooms occurred across the preschool year and quantified teacher and student behaviors. Preschool and 1st-grade teachers provided reports of children’s social behavior. First-grade teachers also assessed children’s problem behaviors. Multilevel analyses indicated that at the end of 1st grade, students who experienced preschool settings with teachers who displayed more approving behavior, less disapproving behavior, and more positive emotional tone showed significant gains in positive social behavior and lower rates of problem behavior, even after students’ social skills at preschool entry were controlled. Greater gains in positive social behavior and fewer problem behaviors in 1st grade were also predicted by immersion in preschool classrooms that had more positive and cooperative interactions among peers. Practice or Policy: Universal preschool is a policy under consideration nationally and locally, with social competence often listed as an important goal. This study indicates that even in the absence of a particular social-emotional curriculum, preschool teachers’ behaviors and interactions among their students may have lasting implications for children’s social development.     

Meaningful Experiences in Physical Education and Youth Sport: A Review of the Literature

The purpose of this research is to review the literature about young people’s meaningful experiences in physical education and youth sport. We reviewed 50 empirical peer-reviewed articles published in English since 1987. Five themes were identified as central influences to young people’s meaningful experiences in physical education and sport: social interaction, fun, challenge, motor competence, and personally relevant learning. These themes provide future direction for the design and implementation of meaningful physical education and youth sport experiences. We also highlight the need for the development of pedagogies that facilitate and promote meaningful engagement in physical education and youth sport settings.     

Case Study on the Implementation of School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports in an Alternative Educational Setting

School-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (SW-PBIS) can effectively reduce problem behaviors and simultaneously increase pro-social behaviors in general education settings. SW-PBIS is not a “packaged” intervention, but a framework through which schools create systemic changes for promoting expected behaviors, while also monitoring and intervening with students who have behavior concerns through a tiered model of service delivery. A case study documenting the SW-PBIS implementation process in an alternative educational setting is presented. Alternative schools typically serve students who qualify to receive special education services, have a lower staff-to-student ratio, and often warrant more intensive student interventions as compared to general education settings. These differences from traditional environments pose unique challenges to the SW-PBIS implementation process. Suggestions for neutralizing these challenges such as providing enhanced Tier 1 supports and extensive staff training are explained in depth in this case study.     

Toward a Profession,Not a Craft

Physical education has a rich tradition of concern for the development of fully functioning individuals, but this tradition is in danger of being marginalized by the dominant technocratic and competitive structures of today's physical education. The purpose of this paper, in seeking to readdress the value of the experiential dimensions of sport, is to provide the instructor with insight into a specific domain of sport—challenging outdoor activity, or risk sport—that holds particular value for Bain's (1988) alternative approach for humanistic physical education. Employing the model of risk-sport involvement (Robinson, 1992) as an analytical framework, the paper attempts to promote an understanding of the complex nature of the risk-sport experience and the potential value such experiences hold for personal growth, meaningful social interaction, and social change.     

Adding a Human Dimension to the College Numbers Game

Grounded in the context of the gap in civic participation, action-based civics curricula, and how classroom interactions may affect student development, we present the CIVVICS (Civic Interactions motiVating diVerse Individuals in Classroom Settings) observation tool. CIVVICS's four domains—Lesson Planning and Implementation, Classroom Interactions, Student Engagement, and Civic Empowerment—integrate awareness of classroom organization and student engagement with attention to how a classroom promotes students’ connections to civic goals and engages all students in positive interactions. This tool can be used to inform curricular implementation as well as professional development for interventions that promote democratic classroom climates and youth empowerment. We demonstrate the use of CIVVICS in partnership with Generation Citizen, a youth civic education program.     

Future Directions in the Movement Arts and Sciences

I argue in this paper that sport should be retained as an important part of the educational rationale for physical education. I consider Siedentop's critique of physical education and his alternative in the form of Sport Education. Siedentop's goals for youth sport and physical education and use of the work of Alisdair McIntyre are explored. It is argued that if we work to experience activities that are inherently pleasurable and intrinsically satisfying, then there is a possible future for activities such as sport. I conclude that school physical education is well placed to take up this challenge of sustaining sport as a moral practice and that the pedagogical tools already exist to do this in the form of a critical pedagogy.     

Instructional Strategies to Promote Incremental Beliefs in Youth Sport

Implicit beliefs about the nature of human abilities have significant motivational, behavioral, and affective consequences. The purpose of this article was to review the application of implicit beliefs to the youth sport context and to provide theoretically derived and evidence-based instructional strategies to promote adaptive implicit beliefs about human abilities within this context. A narrative overview of theory and a review of research pertaining to implicit beliefs in education, sport, and physical activity are undertaken. Theoretically derived and evidence-based instructional strategies are outlined, and specific coaching behaviors are suggested. Six instructional strategies to promote adaptive implicit beliefs in these contexts are suggested: focusing on effort and persistence, facilitating challenge, promoting the value of failure, defining success as effort, the promotion of learning, and providing high expectations. It is concluded that instructional strategies may be used to facilitate positive motivational, behavioral, and affective outcomes for young people within a sport context.     

新课改与体育教师角色的转变

新课改是适应现代化教育发展要求所进行的一项具体的教学改革。体育教育作为现代教育体系中的重要组成部分,体育教师承担着国家教育事业发展与昌盛的重要任务和使命,他们的角色转换意识关系到体育教育事业的进步与发展,体育教师要适应新课改的相关要求,对教学方式、方法进行有针对性的改革。     

Ready to Learn: Teaching Kindergarten Students School Success Skills

Abstract

Studies have indicated that children have difficulty learning when they do not demonstrate certain prerequisite learning skills that involve attention, listening comprehension, and social skills. The authors evaluated the Ready To Learn (RTL) curriculum for its effectiveness in improving the prerequisite learning skills in 12 kindergarten classes (260 students) in 3 demographically similar elementary schools. Teachers in target classrooms were trained to deliver the RTL curriculum and 5 specific teaching strategies for use throughout the day. Students who received the intervention in those classrooms scored significantly higher than did comparison students on a listening comprehension measure and a student behavior rating scale. These findings may be an indicator that entire classrooms of students can be taught prerequisite learning skills as part of the daily curriculum and, as a result, show increases in school success behaviors.     

Exploring the relationship between school discipline referrals and delinquency

There is a growing concern about violent and destructive behaviors of youth that require intervention by juvenile justice and youth‐serving agencies. This concern has led many to conclude that schools and community agencies must increase efforts to prevent juvenile delinquency and to provide programs that will facilitate rehabilitation, education, and vocational training for youth already involved. A clear understanding of the nature and range of behaviors that result in juvenile crime is needed in order to develop programs and interventions that can be expected to lead to beneficial changes for youth and for society as a whole. The purpose of this article is to describe the relationship between school behaviors and youth characteristics in school (e.g., discipline referrals, teacher nominations, nomothetic ratings) and referrals to juvenile authorities (e.g., illegal behaviors). We describe a strategy of using teacher nominations, school discipline referrals, and community arrest data to predict delinquent and violent behavior in youth. We outline data from a group of socially maladjusted middle school youth to illustrate the relationship between the two data sources and recommendations for identification and treatment of youth at risk for delinquency and antisocial behavior. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The Role of Physical Educationin the Promotionof Youth Physical Activity

Physical education can be a powerful influence on promoting youth physical activity (PA). This review describes correlates of youth PA, examines how these factors have been targeted in physical education (PE) based interventions, and makes suggestions for PE pedagogy to promote PA. Perceived physical competence, enjoyment of PA, intention, direct help and support from parents and significant others, and opportunities to be active were consistently associated with youth PA. The large-scale PE-based PA promotion programs that were successful in increasing out-of-school PA applied a pedagogical framework targeting variables associated with motivation (i.e., perceived competence, enjoyment of PA, self-determination). PE based interventions should continue to address the nature of activities, but also utilize pedagogy that promotes psychological determinants of student motivation.     

社区成员与家长参与中小学体育课程实施的必要性、制因及措施研究

学校体育课程实施为的是不断接近体育课程计划的理想目标,体育课程计划目标实现的过程是学校体育课程实施主体合力作用的结果.研究认为,社区成员及家长参与体育课程实施是学校教育与社会教育相结合的需要、学校体育课程实施自身的需要、学校体育课程多元主体需要.而社区和家长对体育课程的认识、学校体育教育与社会的结合度、家长工作繁忙,社区无组织、个人素质能力、社区和家长被排斥等因素影响了社区成员和家长参与体育课程的实施.目前,促进社区成员和家长参与体育课程实施的措施包括采取各种方式加强宣传教育,促使家长和社区成员正确认识学校体育课程的作用、在发挥教育服务部门主导性的同时,积极构建广泛参与的教育模式、建立社区和家长参与学校体育课程实施的法律支持、提高社区成员和家长参与学校体育课程实施的素质、改变体育教育专业人员的观念,使其树立学校教育要和社会教育相结合的理念等.     

新课改与体育教师角色的转变

新课改是适应现代化教育发展要求所进行的一项具体的教学改革。体育教育作为现代教育体系中的重要组成部分,体育教师承担着国家教育事业发展与昌盛的重要任务和使命,他们的角色转换意识关系到体育教育事业的进步与发展,体育教师要适应新课改的相关要求,对教学方式、方法进行有针对性的改革。     

Reducing Aggressive Behavior and Increasing Motivation in School: The Evolution of an Intervention to Strengthen School Adjustment

The pervasive links between problem behaviors and school adjustment suggest that effective intervention programs to enhance school adjustment must focus both on decreasing the motivation to aggress and increasing the motivation to achieve. We describe a program of intervention research to improve social behavior and academic motivation in elementary school students organized around principles of attribution theory. Our intervention curriculum initially focused on reducing children's aggression and was then expanded to include enhancing personal responsibility. A series of efficacy and effectiveness studies have demonstrated that children's attributions in both the social and academic domains can be changed with cost-effective, educational strategies. These changes in children's cognitions have reliably produced positive changes in behavior. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our work for the design of effective interventions.     

The Relationships Between Perceived Teaching Behaviors and Motivation in Physical Education: A One-Year Longitudinal Study

This study aimed to examine the direction of relationships between specific dimensions of perceived teaching behaviors and motivation in physical education over time among 330 secondary school students. Cross-lagged path-analytic models revealed that autonomous motivation was reciprocally related over time with perceived decision-making style, and positive feedback and that prior situation consideration, social support, and teaching behavior were related to a higher level of subsequent autonomous motivation and a lower level of controlled motivation; however, prior autonomous motivation was related to a higher level of subsequent positive nonverbal feedback. Results suggest that differences in the direction of relationships between various dimensions of perceived teaching behaviors and students' motivation in physical education are due to differences in the nature of the teacher-student interaction behind each teaching behavior.