Equipping athletes to make informed decisions about performance-enhancing drug use: a constructivist perspective from educational psychology

Abstract

This essay introduces some prominent constructivist theories of learning and shows how they can be applied to the design of anti-doping education programmes. It briefly outlines the ATLAS and ATHENA programmes, which have had some success in the USA, and explores the potential for educational research to make further contributions to the development of successful anti-doping education programmes. Recommended directions for future research into the education of athletes about performance-enhancing drug use include evaluation of existing educational interventions, testing just how much athletes know about drugs in sport, and whether educational programmes need evolve with the maturing athlete to impact their drug use behaviour.

Notes

¹ Bransford, Brown and Cocking, How People Learn; Greeno, Collins and Resnick, ‘Cognition and Learning’.

² Lebow, ‘Constructivist Values for Systems Design’, 5.

³ Donovan et al. , ‘A Conceptual Framework for Achieving Performance Enhancing Drug Compliance in Sport’.

⁴ Goldberg et al. , ‘The Adolescents Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids (ATLAS) Program’; Goldberg et al., ‘Effects of a Multidimensional Anabolic Steroid Prevention Intervention’; Goldberg et al. , ‘The Adolescents Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids Program’; Elliot et al. , ‘Preventing Substance Use and Disordered Eating’, Elliott et al. , ‘Definition and Outcome of a Curriculum to Prevent Disordered Eating and Body-shaping Drug Use’.

⁵ Goldberg et al. , ‘The Adolescents Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids (ATLAS) Program’.

⁶ Elliot et al. , ‘Preventing Substance Use and Disordered Eating’.

⁷ Durham, ‘Results from the ATLAS and ATHENA Programs’.

⁸ Bransford, Brown and Cocking, How People Learn; Greeno, Collins and Resnick, ‘Cognition and Learning’.

⁹ Bereiter and Scardamalia, ‘Cognitive Coping Strategies and the Problem of Inert Knowledge’; Gabrys. Weiner and Lesgold, ‘Learning by Problem Solving in a Coached Apprenticeship System’; Whitehead, The Aims of Education.

¹⁰ Clement, ‘Student Preconceptions of Introductory Mechanics’; DiSessa, ‘Unlearning Aristotelian Physics’.

¹¹ Nesher, ‘Microworlds in Mathematical Education’.

¹² Piaget, The Psychology of Intelligence; Piaget, The Equilibrium of Cognitive Structures.

¹³ Vygotsky, Mind in Society.

¹⁴ Hogan and Tudge, ‘Implications of Vygotsky's Theory for Peer Learning’.

¹⁵ Hatano, ‘Time to Merge Vygotskian and Constructivist Conceptions of Knowledge Acquisition’; John-Steiner and Meehan, ‘Creativity and Collaboration in Knowledge Construction’.

¹⁶ Dunlap and Grabinger, ‘Rich Environments for Active Learning in the Higher Education Classroom’; Savery and Duffy, ‘Problem Based Learning’.

¹⁷ More general treatments, along with relevant research findings, can be found in Greeno, Collins and Resnick, ‘Cognition and Learning’ and in the US National Research Council's report on developments in the science of human learning, Bransford, Brown and Cocking, How People Learn.

¹⁸ Brown and Palincsar, ‘Guided, Cooperative Learning and Individual Knowledge Acquisition’; Webb and Palincsar, ‘Group Processes in the Classroom’; Rogoff, ‘Cognition as a Collaborative Process’.

¹⁹ Johnson and Johnson, ‘Conflict in the Classroom’.

²⁰ Smith, Johnson and Johnson, ‘Effects of Controversy on Learning in Cooperative Groups’.

²¹ Webb and Palincsar, ‘Group Processes in the Classroom’; Rogoff, ‘Cognition as a Collaborative Process’.

²² Johnson and Johnson, ‘Conflict in the Classroom’.

²³ Brown and Palincsar, ‘Guided, Cooperative Learning and Individual Knowledge Acquisition’, 407.

²⁴ Bearison, Magzamen and Filardo, ‘Socio-conflict and Cognitive Growth in Young Children’.

²⁵ Brown and Palincsar, ‘Guided, Cooperative Learning and Individual Knowledge Acquisition’.

²⁶ Webb and Palincsar, ‘Group Processes in the Classroom’; Damon and Phelps, ‘Critical Distinctions Among Three Methods of Peer Education’; Forman and Cazden, ‘Exploring Vygotskian Perspectives in Education’; Forman, ‘The Role of Peer Interaction in the Social Construction of Mathematical Knowledge’; Damon and Killen, ‘Peer Interaction and the Process of Change in Children's Moral Reasoning’.

²⁷ Webb, ‘Peer Interaction and Learning in Small Groups’; Webb, ‘Task-related Verbal Interaction and Mathematics Learning in Small Groups’; Palincsar and Brown, ‘Reciprocal Teaching of Comprehension-fostering and Comprehension-monitoring Activities’; Palincsar and Brown, ‘Reciprocal Teaching: Activities to Promote “Reading with your Mind”’; Palincsar and Brown, ‘Interactive Teaching to Promote Independent Learning from Text’; Brown and Palincsar, ‘Guided, Cooperative Learning and Individual Knowledge Acquisition’; Brown and Campione, ‘Communities of Learning and Thinking’; Brown and Campione, ‘Guided Discovery in a Community of Learners’; King, ‘Enhancing Peer Interaction and Learning in the Classroom’; King, ‘Facilitating Elaborated Learning through Guided Student-generated Questioning’; King, ‘Guiding Knowledge Construction in the Classroom’; King, ‘Discourse Patterns for Mediating Peer Learning’.

²⁸ Webb and Palincsar, ‘Group Processes in the Classroom’.

²⁹ Elliott et al. , ‘Definition and Outcome of a Curriculum to Prevent Disordered Eating and Body-shaping Drug Use’.

³⁰ Greeno et al. , ‘Theories and Practices of Thinking and Learning to Think’.

³¹ Dewey, Democracy and Education.

³² Wells, Dialogic Inquiry; Wells, ‘Dialogic Inquiry in the Classroom’; Wells, ‘Dialogue about Knowledge Building’.

³³ Collins, ‘Cognitive Apprenticeship and Instructional Technology’; Collins, Brown and Newman, ‘Cognitive Apprenticeship’.

³⁴ Wells, ‘Dialogic Inquiry in the Classroom’.

³⁵ Bereiter, ‘Implications of Postmodernism for Science’.

³⁶ Bereiter, ‘Situated Cognition and How to Overcome It’; Bereiter, ‘Liberal Education in a Knowledge Society’; Bereiter, ‘Artifacts, Canons and the Progress of Pedagogy’; Bereiter and Scardamalia, ‘Rethinking Learning’; Bereiter and Scardamalia, ‘Beyond Bloom's Taxonomy’; Bereiter and Scardamalia, ‘Commentary on Part I’; Scardamalia, ‘Collective Cognitive Responsibility for the Advancement of Knowledge’; Scardamalia and Bereiter, ‘Engaging Students in a Knowledge Society’; Scardamalia, Bereiter and Lamon, ‘The CSILE Project’.

³⁷ Bereiter, ‘Artifacts, Canons and the Progress of Pedagogy’.

³⁸ Bereiter, ‘Artifacts, Canons and the Progress of Pedagogy’, 229.

³⁹ Bereiter, ‘Implications of Postmodernism for Science’, 6.

⁴⁰ Brown, ‘Design Experiments’; Collins, ‘Toward a Design Science of Education’.

⁴¹ Grogan et al. , ‘Experience of Anabolic Steroid Use’.