The main purpose of this study was to describe the teaching styles employed by a sample of 18 teachers working in an urban setting under the conditions of the first revision of the National Curriculum for Physical Education. A second purpose was to compare the teaching styles used by this urban sample of teachers with those employed by a rural sample we had studied previously. Two lessons taught by each teacher to pupils in Years 7, 8, or 9 during one summer term were videotaped and coded with the Instrument for Identifying Teaching Styles, a systematic observation instrument designed to record the percentages of time in which teachers employ each of eight teaching styles. Descriptive statistics were computed across all 36 lessons and for lessons on striking/fielding games, track and field events, and tennis. Independent t-tests were used to compare the teaching styles used by the urban sample of teachers in the present study and those used by the rural sample previously studied. Results indicated that the teachers in the present study spent most of their time using direct styles of teaching. Their pattern of teaching style use was very similar to that of the rural teachers observed in the earlier study. Possible reasons for these findings are discussed.

Research in educational psychology and sport psychology indicates that school achievement depends on students’ capacity to self-regulate their own learning processes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the self-regulation components employed by students in a natural physical education setting. Twenty-three French students, 14 and 15 years old, were videotaped during their regular physical education class as their teachers taught them a new skill. The students then watched a recording of their performance and provided the researcher with a verbal description of their cognitive activity during the lesson. Verbal data were then analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative techniques. The data revealed that the students employed a 17-component self-regulation model while learning a new skill in the natural physical education context. Three teaching models that emerged for eliciting the identified self-regulation components among students are also discussed.

The purpose of this study was to describe four accomplished teachers’ enacted pedagogical content knowledge of teaching hand dribbling to third grade children. We aimed to investigate and make accessible the knowledge and wisdom of practicing teachers. We videotaped three sequential lessons of each teacher and conducted formal and informal interviews. Three themes emerged from a grounded analysis of the data: (a) approaching dribbling content as a network of connected movements and tactics, (b) refining movement patterns based on knowledge initially acquired in younger grades, and (c) teaching the cognitive processes (learning orientation, self-regulation, movement and tactical analysis and critique, and making decisions) embedded in and relevant to lesson dribbling activities.

The primary purpose of the study was to ascertain whether manipulating the motivational climate of physical education units would influence sixth grade pupils' goal orientations. A secondary purpose was to assess the influence of the motivational climate on the goal orientations of boys and girls. Twenty-seven girls and 45 boys were randomly assigned to a control group or one of two experimental groups. Experimental groups were taught modified field hockey within an ego-or task-involving climate. Pupils' goal orientations were measured before and after instruction with the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire. Group ϫ gender ϫ test analysis of variance tests indicated that the two experimental treatments had the expected influence on pupils' goal orientations but that there were no differential effects on male and female pupils.