Influence of occupational socialization on pre-service teachers' interpretation and delivery of the teaching games for understanding model
Research on how preservice teachers (PTs) learn to employ the Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) model is in its infancy. The purpose of this study was to examine the combined impact of a package of university-based methods and the employment of the model during an early field experience (EFE) on PTs' delivery of TGfU during the teaching internship. The theoretical framework employed was occupational socialization. Participants were two PTs. Data were collected with seven qualitative techniques and analyzed using analytic induction and constant comparison. Although the PTs understood elements of TGfU, a combination of their pedagogical struggles with and misconceptions of TGfU and their prior and concurrent socialization served to mediate and reduce the impact of their initial training. Consequently, neither PT was able to deliver the full version of TGfU during the internship. The study suggested that faculty training PTs focus on a number of areas including recruiting teaching-oriented PTs, emphasizing the model's origins in sport, contrasting TGfU and traditional pedagogies, debunking the idea that TGfU and foundational pedagogies are oppositional, providing a graded series of EFEs, teaching within small-sided games, and identifying tactical problems.
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