ELEARNING IN PE-TEACHER EDUCATION

During the winter semester 2008/09, the Institute of Sports Science at the Goethe University in Frankfurt (Germany) conducted and evaluated a seminar for sports students called, Good Practice in Physical Education". This novel teaching format was designed to link didactical skills' acquisition in terms of situated learning to the acquisition of theoretical knowledge, which should enhance the professional core competences of future PE teachers. In addition, this pilot seminar was designed to evaluate the usefulness of a blended learning teaching approach, i.e. online learning combined with face-to-face learning, as compared to a conventional attendance format. In both seminar formats students worked together in constant small groups (3-4 persons). The learning results and related variables were assessed using a variety of tests, questionnaires and interviews. The blended learning groups (a total of 70 students) had 4 attendance and 9 online sessions, whereas the face-to-face groups (60 students) had 14 attendance sessions only. In order to make the learning progress between the groups comparable, at the beginning of the seminar the students were allocated according to the results of a baseline test assessing their knowledge about PE. The same test was repeated at the end of the seminar to measure the increase in knowledge with regard to the content of the lectures. The ability to transfer the acquired content-related knowledge into different, but similar situations in PE lessons (learning transfer) was assessed by means of a poster presentation, which had to be prepared by each student group during the final phase of the seminar. In addition to the performance tests, data on the following variables were collected: learning environment, learning style, learning motivation, team competences. Furthermore, group interviews were carried out and videotaped to analyse the effects of team work on learning performance (for details see Prohl & Groben, 2010). To date, the following results have been obtained: The students of the blended-learning-seminar acquired significantly more content-related knowledge than the students of the attendance seminar (p<.01). This finding is consistent with a significantly higher appreciation of the learning environment by the blended-learning groups (p<.01). However, no significant difference in learning transfer could be found between the groups.