This study investigated the functional intra-individual movement variability of ice climbers differing in skill level to understand how icefall properties were used by participants as affordances to adapt inter-limb coordination patterns during performance. Seven expert climbers and seven beginners were observed as they climbed a 30 m icefall. Movement and positioning of the left and right hand ice tools, crampons and the climber’s pelvis over the first 20 m of the climb were recorded and digitized using video footage from a camera (25 Hz) located perpendicular to the plane of the icefall. Inter-limb coordination, frequency and types of action and vertical axis pelvis displacement exhibited by each climber were analysed for the first five minutes of ascent. Participant perception of climbing affordances was assessed through: (i) calculating the ratio between exploratory movements and performed actions, and (ii), identifying, by self-confrontation interviews, the perceptual variables of environmental properties, which were significant to climbers for their actions. Data revealed that experts used a wider range of upper and lower limb coordination patterns, resulting in the emergence of different types of action and fewer exploratory movements, suggesting that effective holes in the icefall provided affordances to regulate performance. In contrast, beginners displayed lower levels of functional intra-individual variability of motor organization, due to repetitive swinging of ice tools and kicking of crampons to achieve and maintain a deep anchorage, suggesting lack of perceptual attunement and calibration to environmental properties to support climbing performance.

Cette étude vise à montrer l’intérêt d’articuler des données biomécaniques et d’expérience pour mieux comprendre l’activité en sport et, plus largement, l’activité. Afin d’étudier l’activité de nageurs élites confrontés à un dispositif technologique (le MAD system) évaluant les facteurs biomécaniques de la performance, elle intègre deux approches : l’ « approche biomécanique » et celle du « cours d’action ». Trois nageurs élites ont participé à l’étude. Le traitement des données a consisté à reconstruire, et comparer, le cours d’in-formation de chaque nageur par l’articulation des analyses biomécaniques et celles de l’expérience des nageurs. Les résultats révèlent des traits typiques de l’activité organisant la dynamique de leur interaction avec le dispositif et montrent les liens entre l’organisation de leur activité, les caractéristiques physiques du dispositif technologique et les consignes de réalisation du protocole d’évaluation.

Analyse de l'agir professionnel en éducation physique et en sport dans une perspective d'anthropologie cognitive

Background: Since 2010, French secondary schools with a high proportion of students in academic difficulty benefit from a compensatory education policy called 'É coles Collèges et Lycées pour l'Ambition, l'Innovation et la Réussite' (É CLAIR). These students tend to behave poorly and frequently disengage from learning tasks, and thus one of the greatest challenges for teachers is to keep them focused and active. The 'academic learning time in physical education' is very low, about 14.4%. Purpose: This case study investigates the relations between the students' motor and social involvement and the class management strategies of four experienced physical education (PE) teachers in a difficult educational context. Participants and Setting: This case study focuses on four secondary school classes with the same characteristics: all are part of the É CLAIR program, are taught by experienced PE teacher, with hardly manageable underachieving students in drop-out situations (16 in total, between 12 and 16 years old), and offer four units of gymnastics (for a total of 26 lessons). The classes were organized as group activities, with instruction sheets, with an educational project based on the students' sense of autonomy and responsibility.Research Design: This research was conducted following a situated approach from the cognitive anthropology framework of 'course of action'. Data collection: Extrinsic classroom data were collected by observing the students' and teacher's activities within the classroom and using audiovisual recordings. Intrinsic data were collected during self-confrontation interviews held after the lessons. Data Analysis: The data were processed in three stages: (a) the structure of students' and teachers' behaviors; (b) the dynamic of students' and teachers' experience, and (c) the classroom management strategies related to student misbehavior. Findings: The findings reveal that in spite of permanent classroom agitation, working involvement predominated with only short periods of student disengagement. Compromises organize the relation between students' involvement and teacher management strategies. There is a compromise between work and play time for the students -they mainly remained involved in their work, and were appropriately involved in their task both physically and socially. Then, there is a compromise of acceptance for the teachers, as they use specific management strategies based on controlled short drop-outs as a source of student involvement in work. Conclusions: These findings raise the question of how PE teachers working under the compensatory policy can best manage student misbehavior. The teacher's acceptance, compromises within the classroom, zone of acceptable responses, and articulation of instruction activity with misbehavior management, are as many factors improving teachers' professionalization.

Résumé L'enseignement scolaire de la gymnastique offre un terrain de choix pour l'étude des conditions de transmission des techniques corporelles. Des croyances s'y manifestent, descriptibles selon deux registres : des croyances factuelles attachées à des ancrages perceptifs immédiats qui tendent à les rendre indubitables ; et des croyances représentationnelles davantage médiatisées par le jugement et la réflexion, qui autorisent des adhésions nuancées et partielles. Ces différentes croyances sont saisies comme matériel pour une étude qui vise les structures anthropologiques de la cognition humaine. L'analyse tente donc de dépasser deux perspectives : celle d'une évaluation épistémologique qui tend à déqualifier celles-là ; et celle d'un relativisme culturel qui les interprète comme culturellement déterminées.