Teaching Physical Education through student-centered approaches: A year-long action research study of an early-career teacher

Abstract

The aim of the present thesis was to understand how a novice Physical Education (PE) teacher developed her pedagogical intervention during the implementation of student-centered pedagogies, through a long-term action-research (AR) design. Additionally, it aimed to consider students' voices about their student-centered learning experiences. Participate 25 students aged 16-17 years, enrolled in the 12th grade at a high school in Portugal, and a teacher with two years of professional experience, who assumed the dual role of teacher-researcher. Multiple eclectic methodologies were used to collect data, analyzed through thematic analyzis. The findings showed that the innovative application of a year-long insider AR-design and the use of qualitative data sources afforded a deep, contextualized, and close analyzis of the transformations of the teaching-learning process according to students' voices and their individual needs. Such as: (i) Teacher' conceptual misinterpretations at the beginning of the process, and consequently her lack of ability to assing students a central role in their learning experience, was solved through the combined use of more explicit and implicit teaching strategies; (ii) The initial difficulty of students to work cooperatively was solved through the use of Cooperative Leaning model, which promoted students' positive interdependence; (iii) Meaningful PE experiences were achieved through the combination of student-centered pedagogies according to students' learning needs, teacher' abilities and contextual constrains; (iv) The use of a hybrid season where the students-centered environment (Sport Education) and the specificity of the content subject-knowledge (Step-Game Approach for non-invasion games) were considerated, helped the teacher to act as facilitator of learning.