Pre-service teachers content-related analyses of a physical education learning task

Abstract

ABSTRACT Introduction: There remains some consensus that pre-service teacher education should be centered on the development of teachers’ content knowledge, as it is considered to be essential for quality teaching and learning. The development of more effective forms of pedagogical content knowledge requires pre-service physical education teachers to analyse teaching and learning tasks within contextualized situations. The Joint Action in Didactics (JAD) framework provides a set of concepts that take into account the teacher, the students and the content knowledge at stake during learning tasks [Amade-Escot, C., and P. Venturini. 2015. “Joint Action in Didactics and Classroom Ecology: Comparing Theories Using a Case Study in Physical Education.” Interchange 46: 413–437.]. The purpose of this study was to use the JAD framework to understand how a cohort of pre-service teachers (PTs) analyse the content knowledge embedded in teachers’ and students’ didactic interactions. Methods: An open-ended questionnaire was distributed to 46 PTs to collect their individual didactic analyses of a recorded game-based basketball teaching-learning task. PTs were asked to analyse the effective actions of the students and the teacher involved in the learning task, to interpret the actions of the students and the teacher in relation to the planned content knowledge and propose possible adjustments of the learning task to facilitate student learning. A content analysis of the PTs responses was performed using a systematic process of inductive analysis and constant comparison. Results: PTs were able to identify the gap between what was planned and the actual actions of the teacher and students in a situated content learning task. They encountered some difficulties in capturing the complexity of the interactions between the teacher, students and the content knowledge at stake. Analyses mostly centered on the clarity and accountability of instructions provided by the teacher and failed to take into account the students’ meanings or potential adjustments to the didactic milieu. Conclusions: The JAD framework provides PTs a potential lens to forefront contextualized content knowledge as a critical dimension in their analysis of the teaching-learning process. This level of analysis arguably provides a more robust platform for the development of more sophisticated and situated forms of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge.