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This study examines the recollections of the Sport Education experiences of a cohort of students (15 boys and 19 girls) who had participated in seasons of basketball, soccer and badminton across grades six through eight (average age at data collection = 15.6 years). Using autobiographic memory theory techniques, the students completed surveys and interviews that asked them to recall what they remembered about the Sport Education seasons in which they had participated. Student responses were mostly from the “general” and more precise “event specific” levels of recall, and their strongest and most detailed memories were of those features that provide Sport Education participants with what is termed authentic experiences. For example, Sport Education was considered different from regular physical education in that it was more serious and organized. Further, students claimed they had a deeper understanding of these sports as a result of their participation, and in particular, as a result of their officiating roles. The findings provide evidence that the features of affiliation, authentic competition and perceived learning that students find so attractive, last well beyond initial exposure to the model, and that future delivery of the model should strongly adhere to these basic tenets.

The Sport Education (SE) curricular model incorporated within university physical education Basic Instruction Program (BIP) may increase group cohesion. This study’s purpose was to identify student perceptions of a BIP course taught within SE, and investigate group cohesion in differing activity content. Participants included 430 students enrolled in 25 BIP classes delivered in SE. A mixed method design included multiple data collection: critical incident, interview, and Physical Activity Group Environmental Questionnaire (PAGEQ). Lifetime skill and competitive sport class participants reflected more group cohesion than exercise class participants. Exercise class participants reported lower task cohesion than other groups, p < .05. Sport participants reported higher social cohesion than lifetime skill participants, whose responses were higher than exercise participants, ps<.05. Findings from critical incident and interview data provided further support for the PAGEQ results. We suggest that exercise classes may not spontaneously lend themselves to cohesion; thus, teachers need to be more creative in designing SE for exercise classes to increase cohesion.

How preservice teachers (PSTs) learn and deliver Sport Education (SE) (Sieden-top, 1994) is an area researchers believe warrants further investigation (Stran &R Curtner-Smith, 2009a). This study explores one PST’s experiences delivering SE during a school teaching placement after undertaking a practical SE module in his Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) program. Data were collected through pre, mid- and postteaching placement interviews, along with weekly visits by the first author where observation reflections and interviews were used to investigate his experiences delivering SE. Data were triangulated and analyzed using thematic coding. Occupational socialization (Lawson, 1983a, 1983b) was used to determine the factors which influenced his delivery of SE. Results showed his SE season was influenced by his teaching orientation, sporting experiences, PETE program and school context where he was teaching. Although he encountered difficulties, he valued SE’s benefits and continued to use it during his subsequent career as a qualified teacher.

Research investigating teachers’ and preservice teachers’ (PSTs) experiences delivering Sport Education (SE) necessitates further attention (Glotova & Hastie, 2014). Research that has been conducted to date has shared varied findings, with some teachers finding it difficult to teach SE in its entirety (Curtner-Smith, Hastie, & Kinchin, 2008). This study investigated seven PSTs’ delivery of SE during their teaching placement in the final year of their physical education teacher education (PETE) program. Data were gathered through pre- and postteaching placement interviews and midteaching placement focus groups, which were analyzed using thematic coding and constant comparison (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Thomas, 2009). Occupational socialization (Lawson, 1983a, 1983b) was used as the framework to analyze the factors that influenced their learning and delivery of SE. Findings show that PSTs encountered specific difficulties related to teaching SE on teaching placement and that their cooperating teachers played a significant role in their delivery of SE.

The purpose of the paper was to examine the effects of student skill level on knowledge, decision making, skill execution and game performance in a minivolleyball Sport Education season. Forty-eight secondary school students from two classes participated in a 12 lesson season. Knowledge, decision-making and skill execution (components of game play) were evaluated prior to and on completion of the season. Paired t test analysis showed that the game performance components of decision making and game play achieved significant gains. Further, results of the regression analyses detected that the sigmoidal model was indeed superior to the linear model for (a) skill execution, (b) game play, and (c) knowledge, by explaining 4.0, 2.8, and 3.25 times more of the variance respectively. That is, improvements of the highest and lowest skilled students were less significant than those of more moderate levels. This outcome, accompanied by a lack of general improvement in skill execution, suggests that future research should examine in more detail the progressive development of the tasks and learning experiences incorporated during seasons of Sport Education.