Pilot of a teacher training intervention to deliver student-centred motor learning pedagogical approaches
Funder:
The British Academy/The Leverhulme Trust
Value to Coventry University:
£9,514.54
Project Team:
Lorayne Woodfield (from Newman University)
Duration:
02/05/23 - 31/01/25
Overview
This project seeks to implement a pilot trial to investigate the feasibility and acceptability of an online teacher training intervention targeting teacher’s competence in delivering student-centred pedagogical approaches that focus on improving motor competence and motivation in primary school children.
Objectives
For this project, the team will develop and implement an online professional training programme for primary school teachers to deliver a PE intervention focusing on three key pedagogical approaches comprising “Mosston Production Teaching styles”, “Nonlinear pedagogy” and “Creative PE” targeting the improvement of children’s MC and motivation in a pilot trial.
The objectives of the project will be to:
1. Evaluate the intervention effects on children’s MC and motivation as well as aspects of validity and reliability of assessment methods.
2. Assess the feasibility and acceptability of the pilot intervention design and related assessment methods comprising recruitment, proportion of measurements completed, fidelity to the intervention and the acceptability of the teacher training and of the overall research project based on teacher’s perceptions.
Impact Statement
Primary school teachers in the UK report lack of confidence, motivation, and competence to effectively teach PE while current external outsourcing of sports coaches in UK is contributing to a “deskilling” of teachers’ PE practice. Primary school teachers recognise the need of courses and training to support their professional development to deliver PE, yet there is lack of research and investment about teacher trainings focusing on this goal. Developing effective teacher training to deliver pedagogical approaches can help teachers prioritise learning outcomes comprising motor competence and motivation.
Outputs
The project will aim to present our research at a national and an international conference. We aim to publish 2 papers in peer reviewed international journals. The research project outlined in this application concerns a Pilot study of an intervention in physical education. Therefore, If the results of this study will meet the feasibility criteria outlined in the “Proposed programme section” we would scale the intervention to a fully powered randomized controlled trial and we would apply for a larger scale grant.
