The Effects of Two Teaching Styles on College Students’ Achievement of Selected Physical Education Outcomes

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of Mosston and Ashworth’s (1986) practice (Style B) and inclusion (Style E) styles of teaching or class composition on college students’ achievement of selected physical education outcomes. Achievement was measured by the use of a soccer-ball-juggle test and a written knowledge test. One hundred and twenty college students were pretested on the soccer-ball juggle. Students who scored in the upper and lower 25% were placed in a group labeled heterogeneous; students scoring in the middle 50% were placed in a group labeled homogeneous. Subsequent to the pretest, a 30-minute lesson on soccer-ball juggling was provided to students by members of the college physical education staff using the assigned teaching style, followed by the posttest and the written knowledge test. All teaching was observed and coded by the researcher to determine teacher and student behavior. Results on soccer-ball juggling yielded significant gains between pretest and posttest for both styles; a retention test verified improvement was retained in both styles. No significant differences between teaching style or class composition were uncovered on the motor task. However, significant differences on the written knowledge test were revealed: Students in Style E produced higher scores than students in Style B.