Research and Practice in Physical Education by Tannehill Deborah;MacPhail Ann;Halbert Ger;Murphy Frances;

Author:Tannehill, Deborah;MacPhail, Ann;Halbert, Ger;Murphy, Frances;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Research perspective

This was an important study linking group work that is frequently used as a pedagogical strategy in physical education with student social interactions and each student's place within the team and classroom setting. With the current thrust in some countries toward framing our content within main theme curriculum models, and the frequency with which sport is taught in our school settings, SE as the framework for this investigation is appropriate. It was unsettling reading however. As physical education teachers we acknowledge the variability in our classrooms and the many student differences that exist. We also recognise that while bullying does happen, and probably even in our own classes, we don't always think of it when designing teaching strategies and organising team and group activities. Reading prompted visions of young people on teams where their voices were not sought, or heard, when they did share, their participation levels were low being hampered by the choices of their peers, and situations where some youth were made to feel less than valuable as team members. The authors cause us, as teachers, to understand how status influences and impacts young people as they experience physical education and to consider how we might better design and implement effective group strategies to address status concerns of young people.

As researchers we were impressed with the multi-method design, the depth with which the first author collected data (in-school lessons and out of school events) using a variety of tools (video, observation, questionnaire, individual and focus group interviews, student journals, researcher field notes, lesson plans and artefacts) and the organising system employed for data analysis that seemed to leave no stone unturned. However, a number of questions related to the methodology employed to study students’ social interactions and their perspectives on what happened during a SE season did emerge.

The rationale used by the authors to assign teams somewhat contradicts the SE student-ownership philosophy of helping young people learn to take responsibility for their sport experience. While in early SE experiences the teacher will not hand everything over to the students, as this was at least the second season for each of these students, including them in the design and selection of teams may have been appropriate. As it was, the assigned teams were almost ‘sterile’ in that they represented similar skill levels and gender and the final team chosen to study also reflected a mixture of race and socioeconomic background. In other words, the researchers chose the characteristics they assumed students would associate with status. We wondered if there were other characteristics that had an impact on status from the students’ perspectives, which the teacher and researcher did not recognise, such as children who had close friendships, who lived in the same neighbourhood, whose parents were socially involved, or who shared a common interest in an activity outside of school.

Another question that came to mind was the length of time the researchers remained in the research setting. We felt that the reality of student status suggests that, in this case, the researchers may have only gained a snapshot of what occurred.

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