EFFECTS OF TEACHING GAMES FOR UNDERSTANDING ON QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE INDICES OF GRADE THREE STUDENTS’ GAME PERFORMANCE

Growing research has demonstrated that game-centered approaches have been favored by Physical Education (PE) teachers as means to increase all students’ competence at a physical and (meta)cognitive level. As one of the most popular game-centered approaches within PE, the Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) model offers a student centered perspective to PE teaching, one that is based on the design developmentally appropriate games that foreground tactical understanding as a basic requirement for intentional and coherent skill learning.

By utilizing the TGfU model, the aim of the present research is twofold:
a) to present the implementation of a game-centered intervention program within the context of Greek PE, and
b) to assess its impact on primary school students’ game performance and understanding.

Four in-service PE teachers, trained in the use of TGfU, taught sixteen 45-minute invasion-game units, each being responsible for a different class of grade three students from two separate schools (N=91, approximately n=23 per class). The content of all units was agreed upon by all teachers so as to sequentially address the tactical problems of maintaining possession of the ball, creating space in attack, attacking the goal and defending space. Each unit began with an initial game form, followed by observation and questioning by the teacher and ended with a final game form of increased difficulty. At the end of every unit, teachers completed a structured reflective journal noting students’ and lessons’ strengths and weaknesses. Using a single subject design, four students per teacher (2 boys and 2 girls) were randomly selected from each class (n=16). Changes in these students’ game-performance between baseline and end of intervention were assessed within a modified four vs. four handball game (Game Performance Assessment Instrument, Oslin, Mitchell, & Griffin, 1998), while pedometers were used for recording changes in their physical activity within game play. Qualitative data involving students’ verbal reports of game understanding were be analyzed along with PE teacher journal entries at the end of the program. Since the data analysis is still in progress, results from the effects of the TGfU instructional model on both students’ and teachers’ patterns of skill, attitude and knowledge change will be released during the conference.