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Teaching and learning movement capability in PE: learning to run differently

One aim with PEH in Sweden is to develop students all round movement capability. What movement capability means is however unclear and subsequently also what students are supposed to learn and know. Also, capability to move seems to be a taken-for-granted prerequisite for, or outcome of, being physically active.

This presentation reports an action research project taking a departure from previous research exploring what movement capability can mean. The result from this study indicated that knowing one’s own way of moving was a significant specific way of knowing as a part of movement capability. The aim with this action research project was a) to investigate what it means, from the perspective of the students, to know one’s own way of moving when running in different settings and with different purposes and B) to investigate how learning situations can be formed to provide possibilities for students to develop their knowing.

The project was conducted in collaboration with two PE teachers and two of their classes including a total of 40 students in upper secondary school in Sweden. A Learning study was carried out which included a pre-test, a phenomenographic analysis of the pre-test, planning teaching based on a phenomenographic approach to learning, implementing the teaching and a post-test. Then, based on analysis of the teaching and the pre-test, another cycle was carried out. Data was generated with the help of video- and audio recording.

The findings show a nuanced picture of what it means to know one’s own way of running which was not possible to know from start. Also, the findings suggest that a phenomenographic approach to teaching  can help students develop their awareness of their own  ways of moving as well as challenging implicit ‘standards of excellence’, embedded in a common approach to teaching and learning movements in PE.