American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance - AAHPERD

 Issue: March 2007

A Model for Developing and Assessing Tactical Decision-making Competency in Game Play
Karen Pagnano-Richardson & Mary L. Henninger

Abstract:
All teachers want their students to become better games players who are motivated to participate in and outside of class. In order to become competent games players, students need to learn how to make good tactical decisions, as well as become skilled movers. As students begin to make better tactical decisions, they experience success and therefore often become more motivated to participate. One step to emphasizing tactical decision-making in physical education is to identify students’ current levels of tactical decision-making competency (TDC). This article provides a model of TDC, practical teaching techniques that can move students to higher levels of TDC, and tools to help assess students’ TDC during game play. The model of TDC may help teachers identify and assess students’ tactical awareness, which will gradually move students toward focusing on important game-specific context characteristics and tactical aspects of games. The TDC model can also be used as a way to help teachers design learning activities that are developmentally appropriate based on students’ current level of TDC.

Article category: Teaching