Sport Development and Coaching
Contemporary Issues in Physical Education
SES3011M
Introduction
The following reflection is going to critically reflect upon a behavioural problem that I as a coach experienced whist delivering a lunchtime Volleyball club session at St Peter & St Pauls Catholic School in Lincoln.
The concept behind the volleyball sessions was that six coaches from the University of Lincoln would provide extra curricular sporting provision for pupils aged 11 to 18 years of age. The club provided access to a sport that some pupils would not have necessarily had the chance to experience previously and was open to all skill levels from novice to talented. Due to the nature of the programme and based on the advice given from teaching staff the delivery of the sport would take that of a game format. The idea of a ladder tournament was initiated from the start of the first session following a basic introduction to volleyball skills and rules. The coaching team allowed the pupils to form their own chosen groups of four, this enabled participants to work with their friends. This particular technique worked effectively as pupils wanted to have fun and play, not be intensively coached and learn necessarily. This technique allowed the pupils to naturally work out their individual and group abilities through the use of 5 minute games where the top scoring team moves up and the loosing team moves down.
The Ladder Tournament; this concept is very useful when playing net games such as volleyball, tennis, and badminton. It requires very little supervision and players can easily arrange their times on court and matches. The Ladder format is popular in coaching situations where there are large numbers of participants competing for positions on team, for example in the USA it used for varsity team selection (Mescall & De Brauw, 2004).
Critical Incident
The first two weeks of the programme went very smoothly, I personally as lead coach gave fellow coaching staff job roles which involved them working in pairs on their own courts whilst monitoring and refereeing games. During the games the coaches would give basic coaching advice to develop the pupils volley ball skills such as; serving, digging, and volleying. As there was a large and diverse range of pupils participating in the sessions the coaching also had to be performed to the level of the group that you as a coach were observing at that point in the session.
The incident that I have chosen to critically reflect upon occurred during week 3 when a new group of male pupils in year 10 came to the session for the first time. The session during week 3 had a new high number of participants which was great for the ladder tournament format as it gave new teams to play. However due to myself and the other coaches not knowing the ability of the group of four boys it was difficult to introduce them into the session. Firstly the group turned up late to the session, therefor creating a situation where the session had to be stopped briefly in order to explain the rules and format to follow. Secondly the group of boys were from another country and did not speak English as their first language which made the initial introduction to the session rather difficult.
Following the introduction to the session the group were placed into the middle of the ladder tournament as they were of an older age compared to most of the participants that afternoon. This decision was made by self as I did not want to place the team at the lower end of the tournament and not be on task, whilst at the same time I did not want them to compete against the top level straight away and loose their enthusiasm for the sessions. I personally was in charge of refereeing and coaching the new group of boys during their first session. The boys did not listen to my initial instruction of what we expected from them as participants such as do not kick the volley balls, and that when the game was completed they had to wait for others to finish and move up or down the court depending on the result of the game. The result of their negative behaviour was that game play was slowed down for every single participant within the session. During the session whilst the negative behaviour was being displayed by the boys in the specific group I personally tried to speak to the team away from the court and their peers. However this did not seem to have any effect upon they’re negative behaviour. Once the session had come to an end we as coaching staff always asked the participants to place their equipment back into the bag before leaving the hall; once again the same group in question did not do so. This not only caused problems for my self but other members of the coaching staff, and it also promoted the wrong behaviour to the other participants.
Following the session I spoke with teaching staff from the school and also with the members of my team. We decided to look into different behavioural techniques of dealing with negative behaviour’s such as the ones demonstrated by the group in question.
Behaviour research
Firstly I looked at why the incidents that occurred and the behaviour that was demonstrated may have happened. I looked back and discussed the incidents with the coaching team and we came to the conclusion that first problem was the group coming into the session half way through. This meant that they did not know what was expected of them and how to perform during the session, and because they were allowed to perform that behaviour they kept on doing so. This type of immature and anti social behaviour is highly disruptive and a huge interference when coaching/teaching as discussed by Johnson & Fullwood, (2006) who conducted a study into the opinions of secondary school teachers and their opinions on problem behaviours. They found that regular secondary school teachers throughout the study found the behaviour of social defiance most disturbing, secondly motor disturbance, and thirdly social immaturity.
“Regular educators, however, spend significantly more non-academic time attending to the educational needs of students with learning or behavioural difficulties, and may spend up to 90% more time with these students than with students without such difficulties” (Thompson, White, & Morgan, 1982 cite; Johnson & Fullwood, 2006)
The team were demonstrating some of the negative behaviours discussed by Johnson & Fullwood, (2006) and throughout the review that they conducted it is discussed that these behaviours could be a result of learning difficulties. This is a possibility in the case of any of the pupils attending the lunchtime volleyball sessions; however we as coaches were not informed of any individual learning difficulties.
With the negative start to the session in mind it was easier to see how the participants may have mixed ideas on what was expected from them and that the session was designed to be fun but participants still had to follow the rules and guidelines set by the coaching staff. One theory that I researched was the FAIR plan conducted by Rappaport & Minahan, 2012, in which they discuss the need to observe behaviour in order to understand what categories of behaviour are being displayed and why.
“Behaviour happens for a reason and is a form of communication.”
Rappaport & Minahan, p.18, 2012
Rappaport & Minahan, 2012 have developed a strategy to combat negative, disruptive and inappropriate behaviour in the classroom. It is a four stage process called “FAIR” which is designed to enable teachers to better understand individual behaviours and decide which technique is best to intervene. ; the F in the plan stands for understanding the function of a pupils behaviour, A stands for the specific accommodation for the behaviour shown, I stands for the interaction strategy to put in place, and R stands for the appropriate response to the behaviour.
“By adopting the FAIR plan, teachers can discover that inappropriate behaviour is malleable and temporary—and that they can help their students thrive.”
Rappaport & Minahan, p.19, 2012
The study into the FAIR plan has shown that the behaviour of student can be changed through the use of this process. The plan was able to reach even the most extreme of cases including pupils who were on the brink of being excluded from everyday school life. In association with the children’s behaviour patterns changing the teachers performing the plan realised that they too needed to implement new techniques of compassion and flexibility when dealing with inappropriate behaviour in pupils.
Another behavioural technique that I researched was the “Good Behaviour Game”; developed by Lannie & McCurdy, 2007 the strategy is based around the theory of whole class participation and is designed to be simple for a teacher to deliver.
The game had been tested on multiple occasions and has proved effective in improving appropriate student behaviour and decreasing disruptive student behaviour. The first study to implement the game was Barrish, Saunders & Wolf, 1969. They reported positive results in a fourth grade classroom that contained students with a high rate of both shouting out and out of seat behaviour. The use of a classroom tool such as the “Good Behaviour Game” is one way in which teachers can control pupil behaviour during a lesson.
Conclusion
With the research that I conducted in mind the initial precaution that I took to deal with the behaviour was not effective at all. So the week following week three I decided to implement the FAIR plan designed by Rappaport & Minahan, 2012. Firstly I looked at the behaviour that the pupils were displaying (F), I then spoke to the coaching staff and the rest of the group regarding the whole group sitting down in between games so we know when everyone has finished (A), that resulted in me speaking with the group before the session started and outlining what was expected of them (I), and then explaining the consequences of what would happen if they did not follow the rules; for example having to leave the session (R). The result of this action was that the group followed the guidelines set out by myself and the other coaching staff. Whilst the group performed the games correctly the boys were now causing problems with other pupils when competing against them. So the FAIR plan was successful in changing the initial negative behaviour if the pupils, but they then created a new set of negative behaviour that was more difficult to manage and deal with.
If I was to conduct a similar programme again I would implement that all pupils had to be present at the beginning of each session in order to participate in the session. That way each participant understands the rules and guidelines expected of them whilst competing in the session. In terms of the behaviour of the group I would implement the FAIR plan once again as it was very effective when dealing with specific negative behaviour. I believe that once that FAIR plan had been implemented and the consequences of negative behaviour had been explained to participants negative behaviour would be easier to deal with.
References
Bridging the Gap Between Clinical and Classroom Intervention: Keystone Approaches for Students With Challenging Behavior. Authors:Ducharme, Joseph M.1 joe.ducharme@utoronto.ca Shecter, Carly2.Source:School Psychology Review; 2011, Vol. 40 Issue 2, p257-274, 18p
Cracking the behaviour code. Nancy Rappaport and Jessica Minahan, E D U C A T I O N A L LE A D E R S H I P, O C T O B E R 2012, p18-31
Development of a short-form version of the Physical Education Classroom Instrument: measuring secondary pupils’ disruptive behaviours., Paul R. Krecha, Pamela H. Kulinnab and Donetta Cothranc, Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy Vol. 15, No. 3, July 2010, pp209–225
Disturbing Behaviors in the Secondary Classroom: How Do General Educators Perceive Problem Behaviors? Holly L. Johnson and Harry L. Fullwood, 301 Journal of Instructional Psychology, Vol. 33, No. 1, p21-31
Preventing Disruptive Behavior in the Urban Classroom: Effects of the Good Behavior Game on Student and Teacher Behavior EDUCATION AND TREATMENT OF CHILDREN; , 2007 Vol. 30, No. 1. p85-96
Rimm-Kaufman, Sara E., Center for the Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, US, serk@virginia.edu (Jul, 2009.) The contribution of children’s self-regulation and classroom quality to children’s adaptive behaviors in the kindergarten classroom. Developmental Psychology, Vol 45(4), pp. 958-972.
Tennis–One Shot At A Time: Keep It Simple, Have More Fun Ronde Mescall & Chris De Brauw 2004. I universe.inc ; usa page 87-88
Comments are closed.