Reality congruent sport teaching

In a previous blog (available here) I considered the idea of meaningful understanding of sport using a game based approach. In this blog, I explore the concept of meaningful sport further.

Sport is a highly valued social activity. It is a cultural activity forming part of the ‘imagined' cultural identities in many countries, none more so than Australia (Anderson, 1991). However, sport participation drops off from high levels of participation in childhood to lower levels of participation in youth, and then lower again into and through adulthood. Associated with that, is commentary suggesting generally a declining participation in physical activity as part of one’s valued ‘way of life’. 

There is limited evidence of sport teaching in physical education transferring to physical activity participation 'beyond the school gate' in any numerical sense of significance. Three basic strategies have been used in physical education for the promotion of meaningful movement participation, which I will align with the focus area of sport:

Prudential – the argument that movement is a useful tool towards achieving wellness. I.e. if you do not adopt an active lifestyle your life expectancy will be shortened. Sport as useful. Utility argument.

Intellectual – the argument that provision of science, theory and understanding a person will be able to knowingly plan for wellness. Sport as understood. Teaching for understanding argument.

Affective – the argument that focussing on the positive affect of movement will motivate continued participation. Sport as enjoyed. Creating ‘fun’ argument.

(Kretchmar, 2000)

These three strategies do not appear to have been successful over the long term in providing the ‘stickiness’ of sport participation for many who start physical activity participation in sport in childhood, or for that matter regular physical activity participation in general. Another way of looking at sport education for long term physical activity participation is needed. I suggest a new strategy that acknowledges that personal commitment comes from deep meaning which is developed after ‘dwelling’ in an activity for a while. Physical education curriculum has typically not promoted 'dwelling' in an activity, compared to sport teaching occurring in community club settings, but rather, PE often provides an experiential 'come and try' multi-activity curriculum. The shortfalls of this curriculum model for secondary school PE are well documented. Recent suggestions are to enhance this physical education through a pedagogy that assumes people need to know that movement is meaningful in order for them to choose to move. Meaning is seen as precursor. The PE teacher therefore needs to find out what is meaningful to students, and build from there. 

Kretchmar (2000a) suggested meaning needs to be flipped from being positioned as a precursor to a product. A product that emerges from being able to act in the environments one inhabits with a degree of effect. This seems similar to the self-efficacy argument: movement competence provides the individual with the confidence to choose to be physically active. To achieve the outcome of meaningful movement, I suggest that we need to invite people to ‘dwell’ in a movement sub-culture (like sport) in physical education for long enough that meaning becomes sufficient to turn to commitment.

If meaning is the key to understanding why people move, the idea of reality congruence may help the ‘flip’ that Kretchmar (2000a) suggested. Reality congruent sport teaching in physical education and community sport settings (recognising that the sport coach is involved in an educative educator: improving players ability to play the game) would position sport teaching as a social construct based on long term processes of social change in constantly dynamic social networks. An experiential 'come and try' multi-activity curriculum could not meet this positioning. However, if the PE curriculum enabled learners long enough to 'dwell' in the culture of sport "it might assume the connotative meanings of ritual and do what rituals have done for people across the ages--namely, remind and inspire!" (Kretchmar, 2000b, p.21).

Kretchmar (2000b) indicated that physical educators (sport teachers and sport coaches) cannot 'teach' meaningful movement any more so than a sport coach can force a person to play a sport. However, they can guide people into the culture where meanings are found and contribute to the making of one's story. In a way, meaning making is likely then to be a process that fosters self-efficacy and the habits of mind that lead to the learned ability to arrange one's life in a particular way (something I explored in previous blogs here and here). What I am suggesting is that physical educators interested in fostering participation in sport for those not already committed or wavering in commitment need to consider developing more reality congruent knowledge learning environments. These environments would be concerned with the implications of the situatedness of knowledge as a means to understand the social conditions under which the knowledge operates. Sport would be thus be seen as a culture / movement sub-culture and we would allow students in physical education to dwell in this culture (and other movement sub-cultures), as meaning is appreciated as a product of experience, rather than the context I still see in many schools where there is a 'rush' through movement experiences and an urge to ask students 'was that fun'. 

Kretchmar, R. S. (2000a). Moving and being moved: Implications for practice. Quest, 52(3), 260-272.

Kretchmar, R. S. (2000b). Movement subcultures: Sites for meaning. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, 71(5), 19-25.