A comparative study of students’ track and field technical performance in sport education and in a direct instruction approach

This study examined students’ technical performances improvements in three track and field events (hurdles,shot put,and long jump) following either a sport education season or a direct instruction unit. an experienced physical education teacher taught two classes totalling 47 sixth-grade students (25 boys and 22 girls,aged between 10 and 13 years old) in 20,45-minute lessons over 10 weeks. the students’ technical performances were analysed and evaluated through systematic observation of videos. the wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare scores at three time points (pre-test,post-test and retention),and the mann-whitney u test was used to examine the differences within each instructional model at each assessment moment,as well as by gender and skill level. the impact of each instructional model in student learning was markedly distinct. while in sport education students of both genders and skill levels improved significantly in all events,in direct instruction,evidence of significant improvements was limited to boys and students of higher skill level. © 2014,journal of sports science and medicine.