A focus on the how of meaningful physical education in primary schools

ABSTRACT

In line with recent calls for clearer connections to be made between the why, what and how of physical education, there has been a renewed emphasis on the value of promoting meaningful experiences for young people. While attention had been paid to the why and what of meaningful physical education, less has been directed toward the how. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine ways that the features of meaningful experiences (the what) – including social interaction, fun, challenge, motor competence and personally relevant learning – provided guidance for one teacher’s planning and instructional decisions and the enactment of particular pedagogical strategies (the how) that promote meaningful physical education experiences in one primary teacher’s class. Data from a unit of striking-and-fielding games were collected and analysed. Pedagogical strategies that helped the teacher to promote each feature of meaningful experiences are outlined in conjunction with supporting teacher and student data. This study offers preliminary insight into how a teacher can promote meaningfulness in physical education by offering direction on particular pedagogical strategies that begin to form a coherent approach for physical education practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Pedagogy
• teacher
• students
• social interaction
• challenge
• competence
• fun
• relevance
• elementary

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Extensive analysis and discussion of the role of challenge appeared in Beni, Fletcher, and Ní Chróinín (2018), particularly as it related to the use of autonomy-supportive strategies. Readers are referred to that paper for a more detailed discussion of challenge.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Grant: IDG 430-2015-00490)