“It’s Not Just About the Activity, It’s Also About How the Activity is Facilitated”: Investigating Students’ Experiences in Two Competitive Situations in Physical Education

Figures & data

Table 1. Creation of main theme from third, fourth and fifth datasets.

Data	Main theme	Subtheme
Observation/video recordings/field notes: Students are wrestling. Most students put in a high level of effort, while some seem to make less effort. Written narrative of Charlie: I liked wrestling the least in the lesson, because I suck at it. 2.1. Interview with Charlie: I: What do you think about the wrestling? Charlie: There were not that many [who “tried”], or they knew they would lose. I: What do you think about that? Charlie: I think it is fine if you know that you will lose. Then you do not need to try as much as you can. 2.2. Interview with teacher: Some of the students do not get motivated at all, and almost leave the mat, on purpose.	Focus on normative success	Reduced effort if losing

Table 2. Overview of the main and sub-themes in this study (from third, fourth, and fifth datasets).

Sub-themes	Main themes
Pressure to perform Goal of improvement Maintain effort	Focus on improvement
Goal of winning Goal of not losing Goal of performing at best Stressed and uncomfortable Pressure to win Poor relative performance Increased effort to win Reduced effort if losing Give up if losing	Focus on normative success

Figure 1. The themes created from the students’ narratives written at the end of each PE lesson. The full model is provided for transparency of the resulting themes.

Table 3. Illustration of narratives within the theme competition in Figure 1 (fourth dataset).

Narratives	Main themes
I liked the game where we were turning around the boards. I thought it was fun because it was a competition. I liked floorball the best. Because I love playing matches and competing. I liked the wrestling the best because I could see how strong I was. It was also challenging to wrestle with others, so that was the most fun.	Positive experiences of competition
I did not like the relays, because I do not like competition, and it is stressful. I did not like the biathlete thing, because I got dizzy and felt pressure to perform well. I did not like the last match in football, because I felt that I was just in the way.	Negative experiences of competition

Table

Methods	Participants	Data creation	Strengths	Limitations
Written narratives 1.	All students from two classes (49 students).	224 written narratives.	Students’ stories from their own experiences. Every student’s voice is heard. Concentrate in a calm environment and write as much as they want. Stories get more coherent. Not disrupted by a researcher.	The researcher (main author) cannot ask follow-up questions.
Interviews.	12 students and their two PE teachers.	43 transcribed pages.	Information about the student’s and teacher’s own experiences, interpretations and meanings. In-depth information. Follow-up questions from the narratives and the present interview.	The researcher (main author) does not know the context of the situations.
Observations, video recordings with a 360° camera, audio recordings of the teacher using a microphone.	All students (49 students) and their two teachers from two classes.	14 PE lessons (1050 min in total). Eight PE lessons in one class and six PE lessons in the other.	Contextual information. Close to relevant situations. Repeated observation of the situations. Panoptic overview. Opportunity to listen to what the teacher said and the dialogue with students. Using video clips later in the interviews.	Teachers and students might be influenced by the observer and the video recordings. Difficult to hear the students’ voices.
Written narratives 2, at the end of each PE lesson.	All students from two classes (49 students).	453 written narratives.	Students have fresh memories of the situations in the present PE lesson. Connect students’ narratives to video-recorded situations. See written narratives 1.	The researcher (main author) cannot ask follow-up questions. See written narratives 1.
Interviews.	19 students and their PE teacher from one class.	83 transcribed pages.	Follow-up questions from the narratives and video clips. In-depth information from the narratives and video clips. Contextualized information (video recordings).