Can Gee’s Good (Digital) Game Design Features Inform Game-Based Sport Coaching?
RESEARCH
RJSS
JOURNAL OF SPORT SCIENCES
Vol 4 (8): 257-269 http://www.rjssjournal.com ISSN: 2148-0834 Copyright © 2016
Amy Price1, Shane Pill2* 1St.
Mary’s University, Waldegrave Road, Twickenham, TW1 4SX England University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide 5001, South Australia
2Flinders
*Corresponding
Author Email:
[email protected]
ABSTRACT This action research (AR) study investigates the coach-asresearcher's (Author 1) development of coaching pedagogy from a games based approach (GBA) informed by Gee's (2013) good digital game design features with a female soccer team in the United Kingdom (UK). Over 16 weeks observation data was collected weekly from the coach-asresearcher's practice, and from one player's situated game play. Data was collected from Author 1 in the role of the coach via practice plans with evaluative notes, which were used as a context for dialogue between Author 1 the coach-as-researcher and Author 2 acting in the role of collaborative sport pedagogue. The research found that the three principles of good digital game design were consistent with pedagogical underpinnings of a GBA (empowerment, problem solving and understanding). However, it was difficult to meaningfully translate Gee's (2013) features of the principles into the coach enactment of practice sessions. The main pedagogical challenge encountered was the multiplayer pedagogical context of an invasion game like soccer. Sports practitioners concerned with being architects of designer games in a GBA for combined technical, tactical and conditioning training may benefit from considering Gee's (2013) good game design features, however, it was not clear in this study how all elements of Gee’s good game design can be meaningfully translated from the digital to the ‘physical’ sport coaching practice context. KEYWORDS Action Research, Coaching Pedagogy, Digital Games, Game Based Approach, Learning, Soccer. INTRODUCTION This research investigates the coach-as-researcher’s (Author 1) development of game-based coaching pedagogy when informed by with Gee’s (2013) good digital game design features. The category of games to which this study has been conducted is invasion games (Den Duyn, 1997), where the aim is to invade an opposition’s territory to score points or a goal. Invasion games can be tactically understood from three moments of play: 1. Offense or attack when a team has possession of a ball and tries to score; 2. Defense when a team does not have possession of the ball and tries to deny the opposition a scoring opportunity; and 3. Starts and restarts of play (Mitchell, Oslin & Griffin, 2006). Research from the field of digital games design suggests that the game player can be considered a ‘learner’. The game player as ‘learner’ chooses to play digital games because the design of these games is deliberate, to capture the way humans enjoy to learn (Gee, 2013; McGonnigal, 2012; Prensky, 2007; Shaffer, 2006). According to Gee (2003), the question that digital game designers work with is: “How do you get someone to learn something long, hard, and complex, and yet enjoy it?” The claim is that the design of
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the (successful) digital game probes high levels of intrinsic motivation to play and learn the game (Brockmyer et al., 2009; Ryan, Rigby & Przybylski, 2006). The practice design ambition for digital game designers is in many ways similar to the aim of coaches developing sports performance and understanding through environments that promote high levels of intrinsic motivation to play and learn the game (Pill, 2014). The digital game experience and games learning experience has previously been theorised through the conceptualization of ‘game-as-teacher’, a phrase used to explain the way in which game forms can be constrained (modified) to manipulate players’ game behaviors and decisions (Hopper, 2009, Hopper, 2011; Hopper, Sanford & Clarke, 2010; Richardson, Sheehy & Hopper, 2013). The pedagogical skill of balancing play with purpose and function (Hastie, 2010; Lindley, 2003; Pill, 2013; Salen & Zimmerman, 2004) shared by sport coaches in the design of coaching plans and digital game designers includes the deliberate inclusion of specific design features maintained as having high potential to promote and enjoy learning in order to encourage and sustain participation (Gee, 2003, 2007, 2013). Pill (2014) suggests sport as a form of game playing and digital gaming have similar intentions to provide an environment to engage in something that is complicated, not easily mastered and takes time to learn. Gee (2007) suggests his ‘good game’ theory holds whether games are played digitally or ‘face to face’. This led to the research question – Can Gee’s (2013) good digital game design features inform sport pedagogy to enhance levels of engagement by young players learning to play sport? In this research, the sport was Association Football/Soccer. This research is unique in that it the research question explores an area that is under theorised and under-developed in sport pedagogy literature – the application of (digital) game design learning theory to sport coaching pedagogy. Gee’s ‘Good Game’ Theory Gee argues that “a game’s design is inherently connected to designing good learning for players” (Gee, 2008). Similar claims are made for sport coaching (Charlesworth, 1993, 1994). Both digital games and sport exist as a set of experiences a player participates in from a particular perspective. In a digital game that perspective is that of the character whilst in sport that perspective is provided by the playing position, which in invasion games we can place into three broad categories – forwards, midfields, and backs or defenders. In both formats (digital and ‘physical’), digital games and sport are constrained by task, performer and environment rules designed to establish certain goals for players, while leaving those players some freedom of action to achieve those goals. Similar to descriptions of sport as a social practice (Coakley, 2007), Gee (2008) explains that digital games often organize into communities of practice that construct distinctive social identities. However, for this study we adopt Charlesworth (1993, 1994) sport pedagogy advice to design games as learning spaces deliberately developed to combine technical and tactical game components in one practice task and digital games as both contexts that are “richly designed problem spaces” (Gee, 2008). We adopt Gee’s (2008) definition of context as a “goal-driven problem space” (Gee, 2008) to explain how in both digital game play and game-based sport practice players move through contextualized practice using skills, procedural principles, decision-making and perception of information to solve problems in the game form. This study used the design features from Gee’s ‘good games’ theory (Gee, 2007). This overview has been formatted using Gee’s (2013) game design principles – empowerment, problem solving and understanding. The features associated with each principle are:
Empowerment: co-design, customise, identity, manipulation and distributed knowledge; Problem Solving: well-ordered problems, pleasantly frustrating, cycles of expertise, information on demand and just in time, fish tanks, sand boxes, skills as strategies; and Understanding: system thinking, meaning as action image. These features are summarized in Tables 1-3.
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Table 1. Gee’s (2013) empowerment principle with related ‘good game’ design features. Co-design Customize Identity Manipulation and distributed knowledge
Empowerment Learners feel like active agents (producers) Different styles of learning available and players try styles by choice An extended commitment is powerfully recruited as player identity is customizable Players feel empowered as they can manipulate tools in ways that extend their area of effectiveness
Table 2. Gee’s (2013) problem solving principle with related ‘good game’ design features.
Well-ordered problems Pleasantly frustrating Cycles of expertise Information “on demand” and “just in time” Fish tanks Sandboxes Skills as strategies
Problem Solving If learners face problems early on that are too free-form, they often form creative hypotheses about how to solve these problems, but hypotheses that don't work well for later problems Game players feel pleasantly frustrated during game play, which occurs when the game feels hard, but doable, and when effort is paying off Expertise is formed by repeating the practice of a skill until nearly automatic, then having those skills fail in ways that encourage the learner to re-think and re-learn Human beings use verbal information most effectively when they can see how it applies in actual situations Leaning is good when a complex system can be simplified Learning is good when learners are placed situations that feels like the real thing, and where risks are alleviated Humans do not enjoy practicing skills out of context because they find this meaningless. However, skill practice is needed to become efficient at the skill be learned
Table 3. Gee’s (2013) understanding principle with related ‘good game’ design features.
System thinking Meaning as action image
Understanding Humans learn skills and strategies best, when they can see how these fit into an overall larger system, or the whole (bigger) picture Concepts have their deepest meaning for humans when they are attached to perception and action
Games Based Coaching Approach Author 1 identified the coaching approach prior to the intervention as ‘game-based’ for the team Author 1 coached, whereby players were predominately engaged in competitive but modified game play simulation throughout training sessions. An example of a game-based coaching approach is the Australian Game Sense approach (Australian Sports Commission, 1996). The word limits for a journal paper prevent a detailed description and analysis of previous research on game-based coaching (also referred to as gamecentered coaching), and so readers are directed to Harvey and Jarrett (2006) and Zuccolo, Spittle and Pill (2014) who have published reviews of the literature on game-based or game-centered teaching and coaching for more detailed information. A game-based coaching approach like the Game Sense approach is distinguished from more historically common practice and transmission coaching by the deliberate use of teaching in and through game forms the tactical and technical dimensions of skill performance. There is a partiality to a coaching preference for contextual game based practice tasks rather than the separation of technical practice to drills leading to game play (Australian Sports Commission, 1996). Author 1’s use of a GBA was validated with Author 2 in discussions about the intervention prior to practice commencing and Author 1’s practice plan was then used during the study to substantiate implementation of the GBA with Author 2.
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MATERIALS AND METHODS This study adopted a form of practitioner-as-researcher self-study, informed by the method adopted by Casey & Dyson (2008) and Casey, Dyson & Campbell (2009) in their self-study research of adoption of a cooperative learning approach in physical education (PE). Practioner-as-researcher research is characterised by a practitioners studying themselves usually with the aim to evaluate or improve (Campbell & McNamara, 2009). Practioner research is distinguished by being undertaken by practitioners as part of their ‘normal work’. Advocates of practitioner-as-researcher self-study suggest it is more ‘authentic’ because of its proximity to the reality of the natural setting of the work (McWilliam, 2004). This study falls into what Kemmis (1993) called technical action research which Kemmis describes as conducted “under the eye of university researchers” (p. 3) due to the role played by Author 2. The position of the practioner-as-researcher has potential to influence the relations of the researcher with other people normally in the work space, and therefore raise questions about the data trustworthiness. Informed by Casey and Dyson (2008) and Casey et al. (2009), Author 1 endeavoured to counteract this by having ‘free dialogues’ with players. Author 1 would ask the players questions that encouraged them to respond naturally, rather than responding in a way that they thought Author 1 would want. In all other ways, Author 1 attempted to maintain a ‘natural’ relationship with players as would occur without the focus on self-study that was in action during practice sessions. This awareness aimed to account for Author 1’s presence as researcher and participant in the study. The jurisdiction for this research study is the United Kingdom (UK), where coach self-reflective and assisted reflective practice is advocated by major sporting bodies such as Sports Coach UK (2012) and the Football Association (FA) as a national governing body (Moon, 2014) However, there is still a noticeable scarcity in research involving coach reflective practice dedicated to a sports coaching context. Studies that have reported evidence of a change in coaching pedagogy have tended to be framed using a ‘critical’ problematizing approach (see Zhu, Ennis & Chen, 2011; Harvey et al., 2010). Ethics approval The research commenced following both researcher 1’s university institutional ethics approval and club ethical approval. Participation was via voluntary informed consent (British Educational Research Association, 2011). Given the game of participants this involved parent/guardian approval as well as player approval. In order to protect participants’ anonymity, participants in this study were de-identified through the use of pseudonyms, and descriptions of the club were not involved in the writing of this manuscript. The research process Author 1 acted as a coach-as-researcher aiming to self-study in order to close the gap between theory and practice by developing ideas about pedagogy (specifically, ‘good game’ design theory) into Author 1’s coaching. The research therefore presents an ‘up close and personal approach’ (Casey & Dyson, 2008) typical of practitioner-as-researcher self-study, where the dividing line between the researcher and coach is blurred. This meant that the core challenge to this self-study was the possibility of author 1 reverting back to familiar ideas of pedagogy, and actually being able to learn and coach through Gee’s (2013) ‘good game’ theory features. Two strategies were employed to avert a possible reversion scenario. Firstly, the action of repeating the pattern of constructing game based soccer practice (planning), executing the practice (acting), collecting data (fact finding), and analysing this data (analysis), before planning the next game based practice (Lewin, 1946). Secondly, Author 2 as the experienced sport pedagogue. This collaboration was informed by the role of the sport pedagogue in research described by Evans and Light (2008). Similarly to Casey, Dyson & Campbell (2009) and Evans and Light (2008), it was considered important that Author 1 was able to share a thinking and reflection space with a more pedagogically experienced ‘other’, in this case Author 2. Author 2 was approached by Author 1 to participate because of Author 2’s practitioner and research experience with game-based sport coaching. Through regular indepth discussions with Author 2, Author 1 became more overt in design, implementation and report of the intervention coaching approach.
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Research setting For this study, the club will be referred to as Bluebell Warriors. Soccer practice occurred weekly, with each session lasting 90 minutes. There was a total of 50 registered female soccer players (
