The purpose of this study was to provide a description of an on-site professional development program for Russian teachers as they learned to teach Sport Education. A concurrent objective was to investigate the effectiveness of this professional development opportunity. Participants were two physical education teachers (one with 27 and one with 3 years of experience) who taught separate sixth grade physical education classes in a school in the Central Chernozem Region of Russia. The data sources included the researcher’s log, informal discussions, briefing/debriefing sessions and semi-structured interviews. The following four themes were generated: (a) the need for sample lesson observance in the training phase, (b) teaching-to-model congruency validation, (c) difficulties of ‘letting go of the control’, and (d) cooperative learning. The findings of the study are discussed using the theoretical framework on factors influencing professional development (Birman et al., 2000) and the model of teacher change (Guskey, 1986; 2002).

This study examined the participation and perceptions of a cohort of sixth-grade Russian students as they participated in a season of basketball that followed a Sport Education format. Thirty-seven students from two classes completed 18-lesson seasons. Throughout the initial skills practice sessions and practice games, as well as the formal competition phase, students of both genders and skill levels spent most of their lesson time actively engaged in motor tasks. The students also demonstrated significant competence in the officiating and coaching roles associated with the season. In interviews during and following the season, the students commented that they found the season to be particularly interesting, that they enjoyed having student coaches and that they developed significant team affiliation. Questionnaire data confirmed that students believed they had made significant gains in their skill and understanding of basketball. These findings are discussed within the context of self-determination theory.

In this study, we examined the development of skill competence and tactical knowledge of 41 eighth‐grade students (mean age 13.6 years) as they completed a season of badminton conducted following the features of Sport Education. Using data from students’ performance on badminton skills tests, their competence in game play, and their tactical knowledge, it was determined that these students made significant improvements in their ability to not only control the shuttle, but also to hit it more aggressively. This resulted in improvements in both the selection (what shot to make) and execution (ability to produce the desired shot) dimensions of their game play. In addition, the students demonstrated significant improvements in their ability to select tactical solutions and make arguments for those decisions when watching videotaped performances of badminton games. The key explanation for the development of competence in this setting was that the structure of the Sport Education season allowed for significant practice opportunities, and that the authenticity and consequential nature of the game play helped move all but weak novice students from a more cooperative version of net‐game play to one where tactical decision making and execution was valued.

The primary aim of this study was to determine the association between body composition and performance outcomes in youth soccer players. Twenty-five competitive male youth soccer players (age = 13.7 ± 0.8 years, height = 167.4 ± 9.7 cm, weight = 57.6 ± 12.1 kg) volunteered to participate in this study. Height and weight were used to calculate body mass index (BMI). Body fat percentage (BF%) and fat-free mass (FFM) were determined with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Each athlete performed the Pacer test, vertical jump, and t-test drill. Participants were predominantly normal weight (20.4 ± 2.7 kg·m⁻²). The body composition results were 20.3 ± 4.9% for BF% and 46.5 ± 8.7 kg for FFM. The results of the performance tests indicated a mean ± standard deviation (SD) of 1418 ± 332 m for Pacer, 57.2 ± 7.4 cm for vertical jump, 11.6 ± 0.7 s for t-test. Body mass index was not associated with any performance measure (r = 0.02 to −0.21, all p > 0.05). Body fat percentage was associated with the Pacer, vertical jump, and t-test (r = −0.62, −0.57, 0.61, respectively; all p < 0.01) and remained after accounting for BMI. Fat-free mass was only significantly related to t-test (r = −0.43, p < 0.01). However, after controlling for BMI, FFM was related to all three performance tests. Body fat percentage and FFM are associated with performance in youth soccer players, with stronger relationships reported in the former metric. The findings highlight the need for accurate body composition measurements as part of an assessment battery in young athletes.

Background: Lack of content knowledge (CK) is problematic in teaching in classroom subject areas and in physical education. There is a dearth of data-based research on interventions aimed at helping teachers acquire CK and, in turn, on the effects of CK on student learning. Aim: To investigate the effect of professional development, in the form of a CK workshop, on the quality of instruction and student learning. Participants: Two beginning middle-school physical education teachers of both genders who had no experience in playing or teaching badminton were purposefully selected. A total of 48 students (2 teachers × 4 classes × 6 students) participated in this study. Data collection and analysis: Descriptive statistics for students’ and teachers’ data were reported. General linear models with a nested design structure were used to examine the statistical differences of the mean percentage of students’ correct or incorrect performances between the comparison and experimental classes. Findings: Most students rarely performed the skills correctly in the comparison classes, whereas the students tended to perform the skills correctly in the experimental classes. Both teachers used more correct task representations and more mature tasks by using more diverse forms of visual and verbal representations in teaching after the badminton CK workshop. Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that a relatively short, 4-hour CK workshop was effective in changing teacher pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) behaviors. More importantly, the results also demonstrate that these changes in teacher PCK behaviors produced better student learning. However, levels of procedural fidelity of workshop in teaching need to be further investigated.

The purpose of the study was to implement a Sport Education season designed to be mastery-involving and examine the degree of congruence between the objective measure of the presented climate with the students’ perceptions of the saliency of this motivational climate. Twenty-one male high school students (mean age of 15.9 years) and one expert teacher participated in 12 lessons, each of 90 minutes’ duration, of team handball taught using Sport Education. During each phase of the Sport Education season the TARGET motivational climate variables were coded by analyzing the lesson videotapes. Following each phase, students completed the “perceptions of teacher’s emphasis on goals” questionnaire. Results showed a consistent student perception of a mastery climate across all phases of the season. The teacher was able to manipulate the predominantly performance-based task structure of practice style tasks and formal competition within the model to foster a mastery climate with an emphasis on mastery-based recognition and evaluation structures. The latter finding has important instructional implications for facilitating student motivation within the teaching of competitive sports in secondary physical education.