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Abstract
This paper reports on a study that inquired into female pre-service primary teachers' experiences of a unit of study on Game Sense teaching in a primary teacher education programme in Australia. It examined student attitudes and inclinations toward physical education that they brought to the unit and the impact their experience of the unit had upon their views on physical education and their inclinations to teach. At the same time it examined the effectiveness of the unit's design and the ways in which the learning experiences provided interacted with existing beliefs to shape learning and knowledge of games teaching. The unit featured an attempt to integrate theory and practice by structuring lectures around experiences of games as learners and teachers. This paper suggests that combining theoretical lectures with a reflective approach to practical workshops and teaching experiences in schools provides an effective means of developing student understanding of Game Sense over a short period of time.
Introduction
Although a wide range of socio-cultural factors shape children's attitudes to physical activity primary school physical education exerts an important influence on their education, exercise adherence, health and future well being (Harrison, 1998). It does, however, typically suffer from a lack of status, reduced time and resources and poor quality programmes (Hardman & Marshall, 2001). It is considered to be of less value in increasingly crowded school curricula (Williams, 1989). Concerns with reduced time spent on physical education in Australian primary schools were aired by the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Recreation and the Arts (SSCERA) in 1992 but this continues to be a problem (Gard & Fry, 1997; Hardman, 2000). Within this context of concern with the state of physical education in primary schools ability of classroom teachers to deliver quality physical education programmes due to inadequate teacher training prorammes has been identified as an area of concern (see for example. Moore. Webb, & Dickson, 1997). When faced with teaching physical education primary school teachers often feel inadequate and lack confidence and interest in the subject (Curtner-Smith, 1999; Martens, 1996).
Despite promising developments in physical education teaching still-dominant approaches emphasising the mastery of technique before playing games marginalise and exclude girls and the less confident males (Ennis, 1999). This has serious implications for primary school...