Learning to Teach Sport Education in Russia: Factors Affecting Model Understanding and Intentions to Teach

Overview & Synopsis

While remarkably positive findings have been presented in research focusing on Sport Education in school settings, investigations on how preservice teachers learn to teach a new curriculum in physical education have been described as "the missing link" in curriculum research. The purpose of this study was to introduce Sport Education to students in a Russian physical education pedagogical college, and to track their understanding of the model through a series of learning experiences. An action research methodology was employed as the main design of this study, which included four experience steps: lecturing, participating, planning and teaching. The most significant finding related to the knowledge that preservice teachers received during their intensive participation. In particular, this cohort of preservice teachers began with the misconception that Sport Education is a model where the teacher is essentially substituted by the students in terms of the operation of the class. However, by the end of the experience, the preservice teachers held the belief that Sport Education is more like a completely different teaching style where the teacher becomes a facilitator of class events. Nonetheless, their previous histories with physical education and their apprenticeships of observation strongly shaped their future intentions to teach the model.