Institute of Sports Science

Competence Development and Intervention Research in School Physical Education

The development of competence is a prime objective of modern PE lessons (“competence-oriented PE”). As was already stated in publications by the Tübingen School around Ommo Grupe (e.g. Kurz, 1977), PE should integrate various pedagogical perspectives. Our research looks at the implementation of lesson sequences from the perspectives health and performance. The focus is on conceptual questions of teaching, diagnostic approaches to measuring individual facets of competence (e.g. health-related knowledge about fitness) as well as providing evidence of effectiveness based on interventional studies.

  • Health is a very traditional perspective of PE, which has moved even further into the focus of attention given the increasing lack of physical activity in modern societies. Since an effective health promotion through physical activity should already start with children and adolescents, PE lessons at school offer a promising setting. From the perspective “health”, our focal topic 1 deals with the conception and evaluation of lesson sequences for PE. Based on theoretical considerations from the perspectives of sport psychology, sport pedagogy and exercise science, and with an analysis of empirical research, several development programmes were designed. These were evaluated in large-scale interventional studies conducted in PE lessons and include programmes such as HealthyPEP (“Health Promotion Physical Education Programme“) or – in co-operation with other departments – gekos  (“Förderung bewegungsbezogener Gesundheitskompetenz im Sportunterricht“ meaning Promotion of Physical Activity-Related Health Competence in Physical Education).
  • Performance is a very own dimension of sport. In PE, it is important to make use of the striving for performance and its pedagogical potential. Simultaneously, however, one has to encourage a reflected way of dealing with the acquisition, demonstration and grading of performance. From the perspective “performance“, our focal topic 2 deals with the organisation/implementation of developing competence in sports games. The competence-oriented teaching of sports games required in the curriculum poses an enormous challenge to teachers. This is because traditional teaching models for sports games do not aim at the development of competence explicitly. We tackle this problem, among other things, by the development of a competence acquisition model for sports games. A scientific basis for this is provided by linking the concepts of competence-oriented PE with established games-oriented teaching concepts, such as the Tactical Games Approach.

Selected publications

Conception and evaluation of teaching series in physical education from the perspective of health [Topic 1]

  • Demetriou, Y., & Höner, O. (2012). Physical activity interventions in the school setting: a systematic review. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 13(2), 186-196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2011.11.006
  • Demetriou, Y., Sudeck, G., & Höner, O. (2014). Indirekte Gesundheitseffekte des Unterrichtsprogramms HealthyPEP: Ergebnisevaluation unter Berücksichtigung der Programminhalte und des Implementierungsgrades im Sportunterricht. [Indirect health effects of the training program HealthyPEP: Evaluation of results considering the contents and degree of implementation in sports training]. Sportwissenschaft, 44(2), 86-98. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12662-014-0324-1
  • Demetriou, Y., Sudeck, G., Thiel, A., & Höner, O. (2015). The effects of school-based physical activity interventions on students' health-related fitness knowledge: A systematic review. Educational Research Review, 16(1), 19-40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2015.07.002
  • Höner, O. & Demetriou, Y. (2012). Körperlich-sportliche Aktivität und gesundheitsbezogene Lebensqualität. In R. Fuchs &. W. Schlicht (Hrsg.), Seelische Gesundheit und sportliche Aktivität (S. 34-55). Göttingen: Hogrefe.
  • Höner, O. & Demetriou, Y. (2014). Effects of a health-promotion programme in sixth grade German students' physical education. European Journal of Sport Science, 14 (Suppl. 1), 341-351. https://doi.org/10.1080/17461391.2012.704080  
  • Volk, C. (2020). Materialpool zum gekos-Unterrichtsvorhaben „Spielen“. Zentrales Repositorium für Open Educational Resources der Hochschulen in Baden-Württemberg [pdf].
  • Volk, C., & Haible, S. (2020). Förderung bewegungsbezogener Gesundheitskompetenz im Sportunterricht. Theoretischer Hintergrund, Ziele, Inhalte und Methoden der gesundheits- und fitnessbezogenen Unterrichtsvorhaben in den Bewegungsfeldern „Laufen, Springen, Werfen“ und „Spielen“ (Klassenstufe 9). Zentrales Repositorium für Open Educational Resources der Hochschulen in Baden-Württemberg [pdf].
  • Volk, C., Haible, S., Demetriou, Y., Sudeck, G., Thiel, A., Wagner, W., & Höner, O. (2021). Health-related fitness knowledge in adolescence: Evaluation of a new test considering different psychometric approaches (CTT and IRT). German Journal of Exercise and Sport Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12662-021-00735-5
  • Volk, C., Rosenstiel, S., Demetriou, Y., Krustrup, P., Thiel, A., Trautwein, U., Wagner, W., Höner, O., Sudeck, G. (2021). Effects of a physical education intervention programme for ninth-graders on physical activity-related health competence: findings from the GEKOS cluster randomised controlled trial. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 50, Article 101923. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2021.101923

 

Design of competence acquisition in sports games from the perspective of performance [Topic 2]

  • Bergmann, F. (2019). Futsal – ein Thema für den Schulsport! Ansatzpunkte zur Vermittlung des Zusammenspiels in der Sekundarstufe I. Sportpraxis, 59 (9/10), 50-53.
  • O’Connor, D., Larkin, P. & Höner, O. (2021). Coaches’ use of GBA’s in team sports. In P. Shane (Ed.), Perspectives on Game Based Coaching (pp. 117 -126). London, New York: Routledge.
  • Schreiner, R. (2020). Ein Kompetenzerwerbsmodell für die Sportspiele. sportunterricht, 69 (12), 548-553.
  • Schreiner, R. (2021). Fußball kompetenzorientiert unterrichten. Praxisempfehlungen für die Schule. Schorndorf: Hofmann.
  • Schreiner, R. (2021). Kompetenzen für den Sportunterricht konkretisieren und verknüpfen – dargestellt anhand von Beispielen aus der Sportart Fußball. sportunterricht, 70 (5), 204-209.

PhDs

  • Demetriou, Y. (2013). Health Promotion in Physical Education. Development and Evaluation of the Eight Week PE Programme “HealthyPEP” for Sixth Grade Students in Germany. Hamburg: Czwalina [pdf].
  • Volk, C. (2021). Kompetenzförderung im Sportunterricht: Diagnostik, Intervention und Evaluation im Kontext von "Gesundheit und Fitness" [pdf].

Third-party funded projects

  • G. Sudeck, O. Höner, & A. Thiel: Sport- und bewegungsbezogene Kompetenzen im Schulsport: Schwerpunkt Fitness & Gesundheit. (Teilprojekt des Exploration Funds „Wo ist die Bildung in der Empirischen Bildungsforschung“ unter der Leitung von U. Trautwein & J. Dietrich) [Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft im Rahmen des Tübinger Zukunftskonzepts der Exzellenzinitiative (ZUK 63), Projektlaufzeit 2013 – 2015]
  • G. Sudeck, O. Höner, Y. Demetriou, A. Thiel, & U. Trautwein: Förderung bewegungsbezogener Gesundheitskompetenz im Sportunterricht - Eine cluster-randomisiert kontrollierte Feldstudie [Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, GZ: SU-991/2-1 | HO 5975/2-1 | DE 2680/4-1, Projektlaufzeit 2018 – 2021]

Research overview