Title: Exploring pedagogies that promote meaningful participation in primary physical

education

Authors: Déirdre Ní Chróinín; Tim Fletcher; Ciara Ann Griffin

Introduction

In this research, we explored pedagogies to target specifically the facilitation of

meaningful experiences for children in primary school physical education. ‘Meaningful

experience’ is proposed as an alternative organising concept in physical education, standing

in contrast to current approaches that do not seem to provide sufficient motivation for many

young people to commit to physical activity participation as a part of their everyday lives

(Hastie, 2017; Lawson, in press). For example, often pupils who participate in a physical

education lesson are fully able to carry out the activity required but at the same time often fail

to fully care about or value their participation in activities (Kretchmar, 2013). Physical

education in primary schools is an important place to foster meaningful childhood

experiences in physical activity (Beni, Fletcher and Ní Chróinín, 2018). By placing a greater

focus on the nature and quality of the experience, children’s participation in, and commitment

to physical education and physical activity may be increased (Kretchmar, 2008). We have

relied heavily on the ideas of philosopher of sport and physical education, R. Scott Kretchmar

(2000, 2006, 2008) in identifying what a meaningful experience might entail. Using

Kretchmar’s ideas, a major review of literature on meaningful experiences for physical

education found support for the following features: social interaction, challenge, improved

motor competence, fun, personally relevant learning, and delight (Beni, Fletcher, Ní

Chróinín, 2017). We know less about how to support the collective promotion of these

features, even though many physical educators would claim to aspire to such experiences for

their participants. The aim of the research was, therefore, to explore children’s experiences of

pedagogies selected and implemented based on their potential to promote and facilitate the

presence of the features above, and hence meaningful experiences. We started by drawing on

a wide range of literature to identify pedagogies that aligned with each of the features of

meaningful physical education (social interaction, challenge, improved motor competence,

fun, personally relevant learning). (Note we did not target the sixth feature, delight, as this

requires engagement across time that was beyond the scope of this nine-week study). For

example, to promote social interaction we planned for small group learning. To make

learning personally relevant we made explicit links between the selected content, tag rugby,

and the wider cultural context of Limerick where rugby is a very popular activity. We

planned progressive experiences to promote skill learning and used a variety of pedagogies to

promote fun, an appropriate level of challenge as well as giving the children opportunities to

make choices about their participation. Some curriculum models such as ‘Teaching Games

for Understanding’ and ‘Sport Education’ pay particular attention to the contextualisation and

personal relevance of learning. We drew on ideas from within these models in identifying

ways to promote student engagement and involvement in the learning process. During the

course of the tag rugby unit the class teacher made multiple pedagogical decisions both in

advance and ‘in the moment’ as she implemented lesson activities. Here we share aspects of

our approach that were particularly effective in helping children experience meaningfulness

in physical education.

Methods

Two Limerick primary schools with 60 children in fourth class (aged 9-10)

participated across a nine-week period. We received ethical approval for the research from

Mary Immaculate College Research Ethics Committee. Children were informed about the

focus on meaningful experiences. Informed consent was received from all children who

participated and their parents/ guardians. Because our focus was on the pedagogies teachers

could employ to promote meaningfulness, a collaborative self-study (LaBoskey, 2004)

methodology was used in this research. Self-study requires teachers to describe and analyse

their practice, identify the ways their beliefs and pedagogical actions align, make judgments

on teaching and learning encounters, interpret their developing pedagogies and identify

enabling and limiting aspects of pedagogical practices (Ovens and Fletcher, 2014). Data

collection involved both teacher/researcher-generated and pupil-generated data.

Teacher/researcher-generated data involved a research journal written by the class teacher

(n=7,500 words), and engaging in weekly critical friend reflection interactions (n=18) where

planning and reflection documents were shared and discussed for each lesson. An external

observer also viewed lessons on two occasions. Much of the data reported in this paper is

drawn from the children’s experiences of teacher pedagogical decision-making. Children’s

meaningful participation was examined using a combination of visuals (drawings) and texts

(post-lesson written reflections (n=345), stories and poems) and discussion (questioning,

individual and focus group interviews) related to their physical education experiences. A

thematic approach to data analysis was employed using Braun and Clarke’s (2013)

guidelines, which involved six phases of thematic analysis. These were 1. Familiarisation

with data through reading and rereading, 2. Generation of initial codes through noting

relevant and interesting ideas within the dataset, 3. Collating codes into potential themes, 4.

Reviewing of candidate themes in relation to the entire data set, 5. Defining and naming

themes to refine the specific story of each theme, and 6. Selection of extracts to represent

each theme in vivid and compelling ways. The use of multiple data sources supported

triangulation of data and increased the trustworthiness of the analysis.

Pedagogical approaches that foster meaningful experiences

Pedagogies that were effective in facilitating meaningful physical education experiences for

the children as evidenced in their data are outlined below. Examples of pupil-generated data,

to illustrate how each pedagogy enhanced the quality of experience and promoted learning

for the children involved, are also provided. Each of the pedagogies described promoted one

or more of the features of a meaningful physical education experience we targeted: social

interaction, challenge, improved motor competence, fun and personally relevant learning.

1. Content of interest to the children

Prioritising meaningful experiences for children requires them to become active agents with a

sense of ownership over their own learning in physical education. The teacher role is as a

facilitator, providing opportunities for the children to explore and shape their physical

education environment and personal experiences. Powell and Powell (2011) posit that

planning activities around children’s interests allows educators to build positive relationships

with their participants as they begin to determine their interests, likes and dislikes. Engaging

in activities that held personal interest in turn supported the children’s motor skill learning

and awareness. Lessons were structured to provide for both the cultural and personal interests

of pupils. Tag rugby was selected as an activity that was culturally appropriate as the

research was carried out in two Limerick schools, the home of Munster rugby. The children’s

writings and drawing showed that tag rugby was of interest to them as an enjoyable game

they did not have a large amount of experience participating in, providing a sense of

excitement in taking part in a fun new activity (see figure 1).

Figure 1: Example of child’s drawing illustrating their enjoyment of participating the tag

rugby unit

The suitability of the content was an important factor in promoting a meaningful experience.

For example one participant explained ‘my brothers and sisters play community games and

they kept going on about it and the matches and I thought it was really fun and I really

wanted to play with them but I never could… normally all my family watch all the matches’

(Pupil P, focus group). Through questionning and discussion, the children were encouraged

to take their learning beyond the physical education environment to the local community. For

example, “Where else could this skill be used? Where else could you have seen this skill?

How could you use this skill at break time or after school with your friends?” Through

written reflections, the children were encouraged to draw on their own sporting interests and

make connections between skills and activities they were learning in physical education, such

as passing and catching and using footwork in tag rugby, and their participation in physical

activity outside of school. Children understood and appreciated this transferability, for

example one student wrote: “I want the skills I learn in tag rugby to help me with

sidestepping in soccer” (Pupil reflection, Week 2). Goal-setting was central to children

identifying these learning experiences as personally relevant.

2. Personal Goal-Setting

Personal goal-setting can help focus children’s attention, promote pupils to actively

participate in relation to the demands of the activity, increase task persistence and encourage

children to develop and identify strategies for achieving their personal goals (Locke 1968).

Goal-setting in this way can help make the learning process more personally meaningful.

Reflecting the features of meaningful physical education, children were guided to set goals at

the beginning of each lesson related to their physical, affective/social, and cognitive

development respectively, for example ‘believing in myself more’ (Pupil reflection, Week 5).

Children were supported in working towards these goals during activities by encouraging

them to pause and reflect during lessons to think logically and tactically about what step they

should take next to achieve their personal goals. Pupils shared their goals in written

reflections, for example, “I want to improve on my passing skills because I think it’s a little

poor” (Pupil Reflection, Week 2). Commonly referred to goals identified by the children

were to improve their passing, tagging and dodging skills, to learn the rules of tag rugby and

how to play a tag rugby match, and to play with their friends. For example, “The offside rule

because it will help us play” (Pupil reflection, Week 2). Goal setting also allowed the

children to communicate aspects of activities they did not enjoy as much. For example,

“...the only one thing I don’t like about it is that it’s [Tag Rugby] a bit competitive” (Focus

group, Week 3). In response, a greater emphasis was placed on personal goals with emphasis

on intrapersonal achievements and personal bests to reduce the emphasis on competition.

This was important as not all children like to participate in activities that were overly

competitive (Gould et al., 1996). Activities and tasks were designed and incorporated into the

tag rugby unit that aligned with children’s goals. During each task, the teacher encouraged

pupils to recall their goals and think about how they could be met. The individual nature of

goal-setting allowed children to set standards within tasks that best suited their ability level

resulting in pupils feeling a sense of accomplishment when they completed a task. The

following section outlines how a shared language of learning was created.

3. Learning with the Head, Heart and Hands (HHH)

Gipps, Hargreaves and McCallum (2015, p.11) found that in order for “a learner to improve

she must have a notion of the performance” before setting goals (p.11). Learning with the

head, heart and hands (Vasily, 2015) provided a shared language of learning for the teacher

and children. The ‘head’ focuses on rules, tactics and safety (cognitive dimension), the ‘heart’

focuses on thoughts and feelings (affective dimension), and the ‘hands’ focuses on the skills

necessary for tag rugby (physical dimension). Learning with the head involved encouraging

pupils to understand how the games were played, what the rules were and to think tactically

about the different activities. Children articulated their learning through this language. For

example, “I learned [with the head] by thinking how and where I would pass to” (Pupil

Reflection, Week 8) and “I learned how to think where to go with the ball” (Pupil Reflection,

Week 7). Learning with the heart involved encouraging children to focus on their feelings

and emotions while participating in an activity, with particular consideration given to positive

social elements. Children remarked how happy they felt hearing praise from their peers, for

example: “It [praise] makes me feel very happy because I am hearing something good from

my classmates” (Pupil Reflection, Week 5). Learning with the heart also promoted pupils’

self-belief and encouraged teamwork. One pupil wrote, “We were working as a team, we

were passing the ball to each other and I believed in myself. I was very happy when we were

playing tag rugby” (Pupil Reflection, Week 5). By using the approach of learning with the

hands children became aware of all the different ways they could learn and enhance their

physical skill development. One pupil’s awareness of their learning in the physical domain

was evident in the following quote, “I was running, dodging, passing, I was stretching trying

to get a tag. I was also catching” (Pupil Reflection, Week 6). Learning with the hands also

related to demonstration of competence, “I like playing with my friends to show my skills and

what I can do” (Pupil Reflection, Week 6). Developing and consistently using a shared

language of learning with pupils, such as described above, is suggested as an appropriate

starting point for teachers implementing pedagogies to promote meaningful experiences for

the first time. Having pupils become aware of what, how, and why they are learning allows

them to make explicit connections between their learning at school and its relevance to their

lives inside and outside of the classroom.

4. Involvement of children in decisions about the learning process

Challenges and problems that are ‘just right’ possess the lure of success and accomplishment,

which can be achieved with sufficient support, time, effort, commitment, persistence and

patience (Kretchmar, 2006). Children were given opportunities to adapt activities to make

them easier or harder, increasing the chances of success. Initially, the children found choice

of activity overwhelming but as the unit progressed they embraced opportunities to direct

their own learning and more freely shared their opinions. Incorporation of pupil feedback

allowed them to take ownership of their learning by guiding the direction of activities. One

example of how a teacher can facilitate children to make choices about their participation is

through ‘teaching by invitation’ which involves giving participants two or more task options,

all of which practice a similar skill. Participants then choose the level of task difficulty that

best suits their ability, hence accommodating for individual differences and abilities while

providing participants with both choice and autonomy.

The Teaching Games for Understanding (TGFU) curriculum model promotes a problem-solving

approach that intertwines tactical and skill learning, encouraging children to make decisions that

improve their understanding of games. We used a simplified version of the TGFU model - the play-

teach play method –in this research. Children were helped to make sense of their skill learning

through opportunities to practice skills in the actual context they were to be used, “...children can

clearly see what and why they need to practice” (Graham 2008, p.94). In each lesson the children

played a game, identified areas for improvement and practice before returning to the game. Working

in small groups, the children problem solved together to identify good tactical solutions. For example,

the teacher describes in one of the lessons:

The lesson began with the children playing mini-games of tag rugby where they were encouraged

to elicit and implement any prior knowledge from previous experiences into the mini games.

After a time the game was paused and we discussed how they were finding the game. After some

discussion and direction from the facilitator-observer, in this particular instance the group

identified they were aligned in a very flat formation relative to the defensive team’s alignment.

This area for improvement identified by the children led on to the pre-planned diagonal passing

segment, where the children practiced their passing and holding depth when receiving the ball.

The teams then returned to another mini-game of tag rugby (Teacher dairy week 5).

Group discussion encouraged participants to identify areas where they would like to improve,

allowing activities to become self-directed and giving the children a sense of autonomy in

their learning rather than the teacher telling them ‘what’ to practice. Children made progress

in their learning as noted by an external observer “good progression in second game using

skills from first game" (External observer, Week 7).

5. Reflection

Reflection activities encouraged pupils to pause and reflect on their physical

education lesson in ways that helped them to draw personal meaning from the activity: “in

moments of reflection spectators and participants alike experience the power sport\activity

has to move them” (Kretchmar, 2000, p.22). Reflection tasks focused on what they learned

and their feelings about the activities both during (for example, discussion, rubrics, poems)

and after (written individual reflections, drawings). Reflection tasks were framed using the

language of learning with the head, heart and hands. For example, written reflections focused

on learning with the heart prompted children to ‘Describe how you learned with your heart in

today’s lesson’ or ‘what was your favourite part of the lesson?

Time for reflection, both individually and collectively, helped children to take stock,

identify salient moments in their learning and make judgements about the meaningfulness of

activities. For example, the following acrostic poem responds to the title ‘What Tag Rugby

means to me’

(Pupil Reflection, Week 7)

Self- and peer-assessment rubrics were useful opportunities for pupils to evaluate

their learning. Alignment of self-assessment rubric criteria with personal goals helped

children to identify areas they needed to improve on and areas in which they were

succeeding. At the conclusion of the unit, children reviewed their goals. For example, ‘I tried

my best so I made excellent progress towards reading my goals’ (Pupil reflection, week 8).

Through these processes they were also able to see more clearly what, how, and why they

were learning how this contributed to meaningfulness they experienced in the tag rugby unit.

Reflection activities also provided an opportunity to place emphasis on particular

positive affective aspects of engagement and experience. ‘Spirit points’ were one way that

children engaged with positive affective elements of participation. The allocation of ‘spirit

points’ is a strategy used to promote team cohesion within the Sport Education model. Within

the Sport Education model, children engage in team-based learning of both playing and non-

playing roles related to sport within a structured sport season. In this research, the use of

spirit points in team-based play highlighted positive affective aspects such as encouragement

of teammates, acknowledgement of effort, being kind and being friendly to others. Peer-

assessment rubrics was particularly effective in promoting group discussion and peer praise

among the children. For example, one team gave reasons for their score: “Nobody lost their

temper or fouled” (Pupil reflection, Week 7).

Overall, reflection processes increased children’s engagement as they were given the

responsibility to take ownership of their learning process. Reflection on their experiences

provided a springboard for them to share feedback on ways to make lessons more enjoyable

and challenging as well as helping them in setting goals for and directing their own learning.

Conclusion

Here we have shared the children’s experiences of pedagogies aligned with each of the

features of a meaningful physical education experience: social interaction, challenge,

improved motor competence, fun and personally relevant learning. Children’s data strongly

supports the use of the pedagogies described above in facilitating a meaningful experience for

participants. The five targeted features of a meaningful experience are identifiable within the

children’s data about their experiences and connected to the pedagogies implemented. Social

interaction was a cornerstone of all lesson activities ranging from team-based learning, group

reflection and allocation of spirit points. Challenge was central to goal-setting, allowing

children to select and make choices about the level of competition and difficulty of tasks.

Improved motor competence was promoted in goal setting activities as well as supported

practice and peer learning opportunities. The children reported most of the lesson activities as

fun. Fun was strongly connected to the other features: making choices, novelty of activities,

being with friends and learning new skills. Identifying learning as personally relevant was

connected to the content selected, the process of goal setting in combination with

opportunities to make choices about their participation and followed by post-activity

reflection as well as strategies to help children connect learning in physical education to the

wider community outside of school. Selecting suitable content, involving children in goal-

setting and reflection, providing a shared language of learning and including children in

decision-making about their learning experiences are all ways that can help promote a

meaningful experience for children in physical education. What has been learned, from how

the children experienced these pedagogies, is the importance of adopting an overall approach

that promotes these features together. Children rarely identified features as important

individually, instead they discussed combinations of features in describing what made

experiences meaningful. The pedagogies outlined promoted the features in a collective and

complimentary way. For example, the pedagogies described are not intended as a definitive

list. We anticipate that individual groups of learners will have different needs and interests

that will require the teacher to adapt and adjust their approach, draw on ideas outlined as well

as make up others. We share the experience of one teacher as a starting point for other

teachers to consider how to explicitly prioritise the meaningful engagement of the children in

physical education. This research indicates the value of adopting an approach in primary

physical education that specifically targets meaningful experiences for children.

Further details on the Learning About Meaningful Physical Education (LAMPE) initiative is

available at https://meaningfulpe.wordpress.com/

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