O modelo de educação desportiva no ensino do atletismo: estudo aplicado no segundo ciclo do ensino básico

Abstract

This study conducted a comparative analysis of students’ technical performance and athletics’ content knowledge in a Sport Education (SE) season and in a Direct Instruction (DI) unit taking into account students’ gender and initial skill level. Students’ and teacher’s perceptions on the educational value of SE were also examined. The participants were an experienced Physical Education teacher and two sixth-grade classes totalling 47 students (25 boys and 22 girls). Each class was randomly placed in either the SE or the DI units and participated in 20, 45-minutes lessons focused on shot-put, hurdles and triple jump. The students’ technical performance was assessed through videotaped analysis as they performed each of the events whilst a 25-items test measured their content knowledge. The participants’ perceptions were analysed from data captured during semi-structured interviews. The learning outcomes and inter-group differences were analysed through the Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney tests, respectively. Content analysis served to analyse perceptions. The authentic and meaningful learning context in SE was deemed instrumental by the teacher and students in the pupils’ development as competent, literate, and enthusiastic sportspersons. There were significant technical improvements either in SE and DI. However, in SE all students improved techniques regardless of gender and initial skill level whereas in DI only the boys’ and higher-skilled students’ groups showed technical improvements. With regard to athletics’ content knowledge, all students sowed significant improvements in either instructional model, regardless of gender and initial skill level.