Positioning Theory: Kinesiology Students’ Experiences Teaching in an Adapted Aquatics Practicum

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this study was to describe and explain undergraduate students’ positions of teaching and assisting students with disabilities during adapted aquatics practicum experiences. The participants were eight kinesiology students who enrolled in an introductory adapted physical education (APE) course at a public university in the Midwest region of the United States. This study used a descriptive qualitative research method and exploratory case study design (Yin, 2003). This case study was situated in the positioning theory. The term positioning means to analyze interpersonal encounters from a discursive viewpoint (Hollway, 1984). This framework allows researchers to explore the capacity of students to position themselves and, in this case, to describe how undergraduate students negotiate and implement aquatics lessons with students with disabilities. The data sources were face-to-face interviews, self-reflective journaling entries, and follow–up e-mail messages. Data were analyzed using constant comparative analysis and we uncovered the following themes: (a) ethical and unethical treatment of students with disabilities, (b) conflicts of parents’ and students’ interests, and (c) medical and gender sensitivity. This study’s results indicate that all the undergraduate students were becoming, albeit novice, reflective practitioners and ascribed their own reflective positions to their sense of advocacy. They were concerned that they had managerial challenges that exacerbated the difficulties in adjusting to the disability, medical, family and gendered backgrounds of students with disabilities. To improve preparation of undergraduate students, APE course instructors are required to use an appropriate adapted aquatic curriculum model such as the curriculum and assessment model. Using the logic of the positioning theory, researchers should study undergraduate students’ self and interactive positioning about assisting and teaching students with various levels of disabilities in adapted aquatic settings.