Promoting sportsmanship awareness: An application of teaching a personal and social responsibility model in middle school physical education

Abstract

This research study, aims to examine the influence that an intervention program based on the Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility (TPSR) model and the multidimensional approach to sportsmanship has on middle school students. Researchers focused on the detection and examination of improvements on students’ sportsmanship awareness and contributions to their moral and character development. Participants were 90 middle school students aged between 11 and 13 years old, who received five structured lessons and a review session following the TPSR model. The sample was evenly split by gender (44 males, 44 females, 2 not declared). The Sportsmanship Awareness Questionnaire (SAQ) was administered before and after the intervention. The teacher in charge of implementing the program was purposefully selected and trained. Results showed a statistically significant improvement in the students’ sportsmanship awareness scores for the entire sample and for each grade level. Results also indicate female participants scored notably higher than males on both questionnaires. The approach used for this study provides novel instrumentation to objectively assess sportsmanship constructs with consistent validity and reliability. The findings obtained from this study confirm the efficacy of intervention programs such as TPSR to achieve student moral and character development at the middle school level. The implications of this study and future directions for research in TPSR are discussed. Key words: Sportsmanship, physical education, teaching personal and social responsibility model (TPSR), school-based intervention programs.