Seeking Expert Teachers in Physical Education and Sport

Although the concept of the quality of teaching physical education and sport has not been defined clearly or operationalized, it has been a major and constant preoccupation of educators and teacher trainers. Approximately twenty‐five years ago, a research approach centred on the teaching process focused on the description of how participants were behaving in their natural setting; the physical education class. These descriptions provided interesting information on teaching skills and how to develop them. Several research paradigms advanced the plausible hypothesis that a strong relationship should exist between what teachers think and the way they teach. The interest in teachers’ thinking led to several studies on: (1) teachers’ beliefs and general opinions'on their subject matter and on their profession; (2) their decision making processes. These studies focused on different categories of teachers: student teachers, beginners, experienced, specialists in various subjects, and possibly, experts. When referring to teaching effectiveness (viewed as a facet of good quality teaching), researchers have linked pupils’ and teachers’ behaviours to motor skill learning by pupils. They usually used learning gains by pupils as a criterion to assess the effectiveness of teaching. These are process‐product studies. Effectiveness was approached by researchers in identifying behaviours favouring pupils’ learning or in describing the behavioural characteristics of ineffective classes. In classroom teaching, an approach popularized by Berliner (1986) underlined the concept of expertise. It appeared a few years ago among other frameworks and/or paradigms to show direction for pedagogical research and to interpret meaningfully research results. It is tempting to investigate the nature of competencies with which experts are endowed, the ways they think and behave, as well as how to drive many teachers towards expertise. When looking at expertise, it is important to consider not only its behavioural component but its determinants and how they are carried out, like values, in the thoughts and decision making processes by teachers. The cognitive psychology and specifically the information processes theory was a source of inspiration for researchers in trying to: (1) identify the nature of differences between experts and beginners; (2) seek how individuals develop their expertise in a given area. These trends, describing teaching behaviours, identifying criteria of effectiveness and analysing expert teachers proceed from a deep need to discover what is a good teacher and to find the best means to prepare him/her.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maurice Piéron

Maurice Piéron is with the University of Liège, Belgium

Francisco Carreiro da Costa

Francisco Carreiro da Costa is with the Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal.