The ‘function-to-flow’ model: an interdisciplinary approach to assessing movement within and beyond the context of climbing

Abstract

Background: Physical Education (PE) programmes are expanding to include alternative activities yet what is missing is a conceptual model that facilitates how the learning process may be understood and assessed beyond the dominant sport–technique paradigm.

Purpose: The purpose of this article was to feature the emergence of a Function-to-Flow (F2F) interdisciplinary curriculum support tool which facilitates the assessment of an alternative activity beyond baseline levels of participation.

Participants and setting: Participants of this study include a sample of N = 153 students from grades one, five, seven, eight, and nine located within seven different schools in Ottawa (Canada), who booked the JungleSport™ climbing programme of their own accord. Within each school, a particular class was selected under the guidance of the school principal and in consultation with the Health and PE teacher. The Head Instructor of the JungleSport™ programme also participated in the study. During the second year of this study, three classes from three different intermediate schools, including two grade 7 classes (n = 19 and n = 26) and a grade 8 class (n = 23), piloted curriculum support tools that are featured in this article.

Data collection: The main source of information upon which this article is based is the small group interviews with student participants that were conducted at the conclusion of the three- to five-day JungleSport™ programme. Secondary sources of information include journal entries from prepared booklets, student, teacher, and head instructor interviews, as well as observed interdisciplinary activities.

Data analysis: The main question that guided this three-year study was: What is it like to become physically educated in a way that invites an expanded movement consciousness, from the rudiments of movement function to the somatics of flow? To explore this question, several student-friendly sub-questions were developed. Responses to these questions were compiled into a summative chart, the interdisciplinary F2F curriculum support tool, which depicts how a student may climb at different levels of proficiency.

Findings: Assessing movement in relation to the F2F model has the potential to facilitate an appreciation and understanding of the many ways a student may become physically educated. This article features how students were able to articulate understandings of muscular function, desired form, kinaesthetic feeling, as well as existential possibilities for experiencing flow. It is postulated that a similar curriculum support tool could be designed for other activities, however alternative, as well as mainstream sport. Simply analysing movement experiences in terms of muscular function, form, feeling, and flow as exemplified in this study has the potential to broaden narrowed conceptions of learning in the PE context. Thus the ‘physical education-as-sport- technique’ paradigm which largely attends to isolated form has the potential to become the ‘function–form–feeling–flow’ paradigm. Thus, in closely observing students climbing, as described in the first year of this project and co-reflecting on the percepts and concepts that emerge in relation to the F2F-inspired curriculum support tool as featured in this article, assessment and interdisciplinary understanding in PE has the potential to reach new heights.

Keywords:

• interdisciplinary assessment
• physical education
• climbing
• function
• form
• feeling
• flow

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the SSHRC for funding this research project [grant number 2008], the research assistants who contributed to the transcribing, compiling, and organizing of data, namely Stefanie Partridge, Courtney Beaule, Desiree Streit, Veena Balsawer, and Sarah Olsen, as well as the project consultant, Dr Stephen Smith.