The development of personal and social skills within traditional teaching and Sport Education: a study with preservice teachers in Physical Education.

Abstract

The present thesis aimed to analyze the students' perceptions of the impact of two different teaching approaches (Traditional Teaching, TT, and Sport Education, SE), on developing personal and social skills that are considered, nowadays, central to a student's integral education, namely: engagement, empowerment, personal and social responsibility, and self-confidence. A collaborative action research intervention was also conducted to support three preservice teachers in developing strategies for the empowerment of the studentcoaches within a SE. In the quantitative studies participated 430 high-school students from 18 classes from 8 different schools, 226 of whom participated in a 24-lesson unit following the TT, while 204 students were taught using the SE. Data were collected through validated questionnaires, and the Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon tests were applied for the analysis. In the qualitative study participated three preservice teachers, 67 tenth-grade students, and the facilitator (researcher). Data was collected through participant observation, field notes, and focus-group interviews and thematic analysis was applied to analyze data. The findings showed that students perceived that SE, when compared to TT, provided a greater impact on the development of their personal and social responsibility, empowerment and selfconfidence. Concerning engagement, no significant difference was found when the two teaching approaches were compared. However, from the pre to the posttest, students in the SE context perceived greater engagement. The results also highlighted the need to better prepare student-coaches, as the strategies implemented by the preservice teachers through the action-research intervention proved to be crucial for improving the development of their role within SE.