Models Based Practice in Chinese College Physical Education

Abstract

Research has supported that Sport Education (Siedentop, 1994; Siedentop, Hastie, Van der Mars, 2020) and Play Practice (Launder, 2001, 2013) in physical education can efficiently promote teaching and learning for both teachers and students. The majority of Sport Education and Play Practice studies have been designed and reported in Western countries, such as Europe (Reid, 2003), Australia (Alexander &Luckman, 2001), New Zealand, and the United States of America (Hastie, 1998). Limited research has been completed regarding the use of Sport Education (Chen, Sinelnikov, & Hastie, 2013; Kao, 2019) and Play Practice to develop students' self-determination, skills, tactical competencies, and pre-service teacher's content knowledge in Asia. There is a cultural difference between Western countries and the continent of Asia. Whereas, to implement and validate Sport Education and Play Practice in Asia warrants examination. This research adopted two physical education models, Sport Education and Play Practice in Chinese college physical education, to investigate (1) if Sport Education can integrate into a physical education club (the sports club is a physical education that provides more flexibility and choice in terms of multiple attendance options), (2) what extent Play Practice can develop college students' skill and tactical competencies, (3) if Play Practice can expand Chinese pre-service teacher's content knowledge development in badminton. The participants in this study attended from a normal university located in central China. This dissertation consists of three independent studies. The participants in the first and the second studies were non-physical education majors. For the class structure, the first study included one intact college physical education club in basketball. Moreover, the participants of the second study contained one Chinese cohort consisting of 36 university students. They were evenly and randomly assigned to Play Practice (n = 18) or Skill Instruction (n = 18). The third study participants were 36 pre-service teachers (31 males, 5 females, age 21 ± 1.0) who were majoring in physical education at this university. Results indicated (1) Sport Education significantly increased students' attendance and class engagement in the basketball club. Integrating Sport Education to a physical education club within a Chinese university was particularly promising. (2) Play Practice can effectively develop college students' fundamental skills and game play aspects simultaneously without negatively influencing the transfer effect from practice to games. (3) Play-Practice can improve Chinese physical education pre-service teachers' skills, tactical understanding, and specialized content knowledge (SCK) in badminton except for the game performance. With the positive results, Sport Education can improve Chinese in-service teacher's teaching and enhance Chinese college students' learning as well. In terms of Play Practice, both Chinese college students and physical education pre-service teachers could benefit from skills, tactical understanding, and game competencies. Furthermore, Play Practice also facilitated pre-service teachers' content knowledge development in badminton. We suggest the Physical Education Teacher Education program considering apply Play Practice to their program training for physical education pre-service teacher content knowledge development.