Article: Fourth-Grade Children's Knowledge of Cutting, Passing and Tactics in Invasion Games After a 12-Lesson Unit of Instruction

from the Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 2001, 20, pp. 389-401.

Authors: Michael Nevitt, Inez Rovengo, and Matthew Babiarz

Submitted by: Jeff Davies

Issue/Focus

The authors of the article were conducting a study on the development of sport expertise and knowledge. They studied a group of 24 fourth-grade students, interviewing and testing the students before and after a 12-lesson unit of instruction on cutting, passing, and tactics in invasion games. The purpose of this paper was to describe the changes in the student's knowledge about invasion-game tactics and skills, and to determine the student's abilities to develop a tactical response to simple invasion-game situations.

Reasoning

The authors state that they have used both a knowledge test and a situational interview before and after the unit of instruction because such techniques have been used by a number of other authors. They also state that multiple-choice knowledge tests are useful, for they explore a student's ability to recognize and utilize vital bits of information to arrive at a correct response. The authors state that situation interviews are useful, as they necessitate the recognition and integration of vital bits of information, and they require an extra processing step of not only sorting out the key information but forming a solution to the problem.

Assumptions

The authors assume that the type of information the students will access during testing and interviewing will change as the students become more knowledgeable and skilful. This assumption is based on previous findings by other authors; therefore, it is not so much an assumption as a reference to another work. As it is a research paper, there were no true assumptions made.

Conclusion and Significant information

After a 12-lesson unit on cutting and passing tactics, the fourth-grade students were thinking in a more tactical manner than before. However, this knowledge base is "fragile", and the students will need more instruction and practice with the tactical knowledge before it becomes permanent. The students not only improved their knowledge on cutting, passing, and simple game tactics, they also improved on their attempts to deliver more short passes, more lead passes, more cuts into space, and more quick, decisive runs, which was observed by teachers participating in the study. The study supports Anderson's (1982) theory that, in order to really learn a skill, one must perform the entire problem-solving process successfully in a situation where the performer sees it as useful (Nevett, Rovengo, & Babiarz, 2001).

Personal Comments

A well-researched study that did indeed show that even students as young as Grade Four can benefit from instruction on invasion-game tactics. The numbers do show that, while the majority of the students' knowledge base shifted from a scoring/winning focus to a more tactical focus, there were some students whose tactical knowledge seemed to decline after the 12 lessons. This shows that there is some instability, or a lack of retention, when learning new information. We as teachers should realize that, while our students will definitely benefit from instruction with a tactical focus, not every student will acquire and retain a solid tactical knowledge base. Thus, we must be patient, and give our students ample opportunity to build tactical knowledge over time.