A Critical Examination of Movement Content Knowledge Courses in Physical Education Teacher Education Programs

Abstract

Despite increasing policy emphasis on improving teacher quality, little is known about how teachers acquire their movement content knowledge in physical education teacher education (PETE). To address this question we examined: (a) movement content courses designed to teach K-12 physical education content in the PETE curriculum, (b) the purpose of the movement content courses, (c) the focus of the movement content course syllabi, and (d) pedagogical tasks used to teach movement content knowledge. Data were collected from websites, program coordinators, and course syllabi in 26 PETE programs and analyzed using descriptive statistics or one-way chi-square test. A primary conclusion from this study is that not a lot of common content knowledge is taught in the PETE curriculums we examined. A second conclusion is that specialized content knowledge does not represent a significant focus in the movement content classes. These findings both support and challenge current policy initiatives that address teacher quality in PETE.While poor content knowledge (CK) is often lamented by teacher educators at conferences and by researchers in their discussion sections of their papers, there are few studies that have directly measured CK (Ward, Li, Kim, & Lee, 2012). 60Kim, Lee, Ward, and Li Studies that have examined CK have focused their measures on health-related fitness knowledge of teachers. Miller and Housner (1998) examined health-related fitness knowledge among in-service teachers (n = 23), preservice teachers (n = 54), and graduate students (n = 21) in physical education and exercise physiology. Both in-service and preservice teachers scored poorly on the 40-item knowledge test with mean scores below 66%. Castelli and Williams (2007) studied 73 middle school physical education teachers who were very confident in their knowledge of health-related fitness, yet they did not meet the standards expected of ninth grade students. Disch, Santiago, and Morales (2012) recently reported scores for preservice (n = 89) and in-service (n = 61) teachers at 54.8% and 57.5% respectively on their 40-item health-related fitness knowledge instrument.

The value of movement content knowledge in the training of Australian PE teachers: perceptions of teacher educators

“…One of the critical questions arising from this study is the extent to which PETE students need to be able to demonstrate movements as part of their assessment. Some Shulmaninspired literature, mainly US-based, suggests that PETE students need to have a certain ability to physically perform movements if they are going to develop PCK (Ayvazo & Ward, 2011;Heidorn, 2014;Iserbyt et al, 2017;Kim et al, 2015;Siedentop, 2009;Ward, 2009;Ward et al, 2015). The results from this study show that the PETE educators we interviewed find it difficult to assess movement ability per se, isolated from its context and/or isolated from a teaching situation, if theythe PETE educatorsare to be inclusive and contribute to maintaining the academic legitimacy of PE (theme 7).…”

“…Somewhat oversimplified, one side of the discussion argues for skills-oriented and performance-based teaching and assessment of movement CK (Iserbyt, Ward, & Li, 2017;Kim, Lee, Ward, & Li, 2015;Siedentop, 2009;Ward & Ayvazo, 2016). Another side of the discussion, on which several Australian researchers position themselves, argues for less emphasis on the assessment of movement CK, and in particular less emphasis on the assessment of personal demonstrations of technique, for the benefit of socially critical reflection in terms of the purpose of PE (Capel, Hayes, Katene, & Velija, 2011;Fyall, 2017;Macdonald, 2005;Philpot & Smith, 2018;Tinning, 1992Tinning, , 2004Tinning, , 2010Tinning, Macdonald, Wright, & Hickey, 2001).…”

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“…Since SCK is generally not acquired from participating in the activity during PE or sport club activities (Stuhr, 2009;Ward, Tsuda, Dervent, & Devrilmez, 2018) nor from experience (Ward, He et al, 2018), it needs to be taught in preservice teacher education. Very often however, preservice PE teacher education curricula emphasize CCK with little focus on SCK which represents a common misconception that the primary knowledge needed to teach an activity is learned from playing the activity (Kim, Lee, Ward & Li, 2015;Ward, Li, Kim & Lee, 2012;Ward, Tsuda et al 2018).…”

O ensino das lutas nas aulas de Educação Física: análise da prática pedagógica à luz de especialistas

“…Tal fato se deve, em parte, à diversificação e ampliação de práticas corporais existentes, eclodindo tanto em problemas aos processos formativos de novos profissionais (CALDEIRA, 2001;KIRK, 2010) quanto em dificuldades para o desenvolvimento da prática pedagógica deste componente curricular (BRACHT, 2010;GONZÁLEZ;FENSTERSEIFER, 2010;KIM;LEE;WARD, 2015).…”