University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Open Access Dissertations 5-2010 The Tactical Games Model Sport Experience: An Examination of Student Motivation and Game Performance during an Ultimate Frisbee Unit Eric John Carpenter University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations Part of the Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons Recommended Citation Carpenter, Eric John, "The Tactical Games Model Sport Experience: An Examination of Student Motivation and Game Performance during an Ultimate Frisbee Unit" (2010). Open Access Dissertations. 240. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/240 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE TACTICAL GAMES MODEL SPORT EXPERIENCE: AN EXAMINATION OF STUDENT MOTIVATION AND GAME PERFORMANCE DURING AN ULTIMATE FRISBEE UNIT A Dissertation Presented By ERIC J. CARPENTER Submitted to the Dissertation Committee TESI Program at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree DOCTOR OF EDUCATION May 2010 Education Teacher Education and School Improvement Copyright 2010 by Carpenter, Eric J. All rights reserved. THE TACTICAL GAMES MODEL SPORT EXPERIENCE: AN EXAMINATION OF STUDENT MOTIVATION AND GAME PERFORMANCE DURING AN ULTIMATE FRISBEE UNIT A Dissertation Presented By ERIC J. CARPENTER Approved as to content and style by: _________________________________________ Linda L. Griffin, Chair _________________________________________ Judith H. Placek, Member _________________________________________ Daniel Gerber, Member _________________________________________ Christine McCormick, Dean School of Education DEDICATION This publication is dedicated to my beautiful and extremely patient wife Karolina. You are the best and your support was invaluable!! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many important people that helped me succeed both directly and indirectly during my doctoral studies. I have appreciated all of the physical and emotional support shown to me in the form of enthusiasm for my work, questions about my progress, and the enormous amounts of time dedicated to helping me succeed over the last six years. First, I would like to thank my dissertation committee for their ongoing support, investment in my work, and the feedback to improve the quality of my final dissertation. To Linda Griffin, my advisor and chairperson, I am grateful for the amount of time you dedicated to helping me achieve success within the Teacher Education and School Improvement (TESI) Program. Also, learning about the Tactical Games Model (TGM) has rejuvenated my excitement for teaching and learning sport in physical education. I look forward to sharing my new knowledge and experiences with preservice teachers, inservice teachers, teacher educators, and researchers interested in exploring the TGM sport experience in physical education. To Judy Placek, my former advisor and committee member, I am thankful that you were such a positive support system from the first day I entered the TESI Program. I really enjoyed our thoughtful discussions about my research on motivation in physical education and your interest in how teachers might benefit from my findings. Your ongoing support and positive approach to addressing my strengths and areas to improve as a researcher kept me on track within the program. To Daniel Gerber, I am grateful for your willingness to join my committee and share your perspectives, as a public health professional, about my work in the areas of motivation and learning in physical education settings. Also, to Nilanjana Dasgupta, I am thankful for your input as a Psychology faculty member during the planning phase of my dissertation. I appreciated our discussions and your feedback about applying motivational theory. Second, I would like to thank my family and friends who continued to cheer me on and inquire about my progress. My love goes out to my wife Karolina, my parents Jan and Fred, and my sister Kelly for being great family, and to Jacek, Danusia, Ola, and Halina for supporting me from abroad in Poland. Also, to my great friends Mark, Pedro, Jeff, Todd, Ryan, Jim, Mark, and Sharon for keeping me sane through laughter, travel, and lifelong friendship. Third, thank you to my peers in the University of Massachusetts Amherst Teacher Education School Improvement (TESI) community. To Erold Bailey, thanks for your specific feedback about ways to improve my writing and your enthusiasm about me defending my work. Your support was a true asset during my strides toward finishing my dissertation. To Kent Divoll, thanks for being a good friend and asking good questions about the direction of my research, and comparing war stories about our successes and challenges as doctoral students. I know that you will do a great job on your dissertation. To Heidi Bohler, thanks for dedicating many hours to help me assess student game performance using GPAI to achieve observer-reliability. Also, I appreciated your ideas about teacher implementation of TGM out in the schools. To Jen Fisette, thanks for your v support during the program and sharing your work in the area of assessment in physical education. I enjoyed our RI connection while working and studying at UMass Amherst and look forward to reconnecting at conferences. Fourth, thank you to my present colleagues at Salisbury University (SU) for taking a chance and hiring me to join the SU Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) team while ABD status. To Tom, Dean, Yoojin, Carol, Susan, and Dennis, thanks for your ongoing support and patience as I finished my doctoral work at UMass Amherst. Also, thanks to those professionals in the field of physical education who influenced my development as a teacher educator. Special thanks to Diane Lorenzo, Steveda Chepko, Deb Sheehy, Donna Smyth, and Linda Millard for being strong role models in physical education teacher education. Finally, thank you to the open-minded teachers that were willing to discuss their views on motivation and instruction in physical education. To Mia, thank you for opening your physical education program to allow me to test a new way of teaching and learning sport in physical education. Your detailed input about student experiences and opinions about my teaching during my TGM Ultimate study was priceless. To Richard, thank you for being enthusiastic about using TGM to design and teach a water polo unit during my comprehensive examination study. Your willingness to explore student motivation and learning in middle school physical education was an important point in my development as a researcher. vi ABSTRACT THE TACTICAL GAMES MODEL SPORT EXPERIENCE: AN EXAMINATION OF STUDENT MOTIVATION AND GAME PERFORMANCE DURING AN ULTIMATE FRISBEE UNIT MAY 2010 ERIC J. CARPENTER, B.S., SPRINGFIELD COLLEGE M.S., SPRINGFIELD COLLEGE Ed.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Linda L. Griffin Students benefit from positive sport experiences in physical education. If designed well, sport provides a social avenue for physical activity and strengthens student achievement in psychomotor (e.g., motor skill), cognitive (e.g., decision-making), and affective (e.g., personal and social responsibility) learning domains. Unfortunately, not all students receive quality sport instruction and many students fail to have positive sport experiences in physical education. The Tactical Games Model (TGM, Griffin, Mitchell, & Oslin, 1997) is an instructional model focused on improving student sport experiences. As a constructivist approach to teaching and learning sport, TGM reshapes sport lessons to allow students to experience small-sided games (Game 1), think critically about games playing (Q & A), practice aspects of playing (Situated Practice), and show improvement in games playing (Game 2). TGM literature includes practitioner reports about involvement (Berkowitz, 1996) and findings that show measures of game performance (e.g., skill execution, decision-making) during a TGM sport unit (Allison & Thorpe, 1997; Turner & Martinek, 1999). Limited data is available to explain how the constructivist nature of TGM influences motivation (Griffin & Patton, 2005; Rink, 2001). vii The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine motivation using situational interest theory (Chen, Darst, & Pangrazi, 1999; Mitchell, 1993) to interpret participant – learning situation (Game 1, Q & A, Practice, and Game 2) experiences during an eight-day TGM Ultimate Frisbee unit. The researcher acted as teacher-researcher and participants were 15 fifth graders (assigned to heterogeneous teams) and Mia, the regular physical education teacher and participant-observer. Data were collected using surveys, learning situation questionnaires, interviews, and systematic observations using the Game Performance Assessment Instrument (GPAI, Oslin, Mitchell, & Griffin, 1998). Data analysis incorporated open and axial coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), theoretical comparisons (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), and concept mapping (Rossman & Rallis, 2003). Findings show that participants‟: (a) participated in daily lessons regardless of gender, goal orientation, skill/effort level, and personal interest in Ultimate, (b) were excited to play