"I don't teach sport and I'm not very sporty..."How the Sport Education Model can be used to address student engagement in Higher Education.

Sport Education is a pedagogical, instructional and curricular model that has been extensively used in Physical Education and sports settings since it was created in the late 1970’s (Siedentop, 2019). The model can have ‘a great impact on group cohesion, respect, creativity…with its most outstanding features being the combination of direct instruction, cooperative working amongst small groups, and peer teaching’ (Arufe-Giráldez et al, 2023, p. 8).

 

In comparison to other pedagogical models in Physical Education the Sport Education Model has been shown to have a strong effect on progress across multiple learning outcomes (Dudley et al, 2022), most notably in the psychomotor domain (e.g., technical and tactical) and the affective domain (e.g. confidence and motivation).

 

The positive benefits of the Sport Education Model have also been demonstrated in Physical Education Teacher Education in the UK, US and Europe as well as in other curriculum areas including Modern Foreign Languages, Math's and Outdoor Education settings, thus Sport Education has a greater reach than just sport (Hastie et al, 2023).

 

The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate how the model has been used to increase undergraduate student engagement and develop subject content knowledge through ‘experiencing the curriculum’. Lessons learned from implementing the model in a higher education setting and student feedback will be presented demonstrating the impact of this student-centred approach. Further insights will be shared as to how the features of the Sport Education model can be used in courses outside of the domains of Physical Education and sport, with a call to action for academics to ponder how the model could be adapted to develop student engagement within their discipline.