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QUEST, 1994,46,270-280 O 1994 National Association for Physical Education in Higher Education Task Presentation in Pedagogy Judith E. Rink This paper addresses task presentation as an instructional event that is part of a larger, more long-term curricular concern. Task presentation is defined. The research from the classroom literature on teacher clarity and presenting information and from the physical education pedagogy research on task presentation is summarized. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the issues involved in delivering a task presentation within a physical education setting. Task presentation in the simplest sense involves communicating to the learner what they are to do and how they are to do it. Task presentation is an instructional event, usually having several components: a set induction to the practice, the organizational conditions for practice, and the goal of the practice (Rink, 1993). In the set induction, the teacher's role is to communicate the meaning and importance of what is to be learned to the learner. In the organiza- tional dimension, the teacher in a large group setting must organize people, space, equipment, and time for practice. In the goal orientation, the teacher must communicate the focus or intent of the practice. The following brief episode describes the dimensions of task presentation in the typical physical education setting: Now we are going to add a directional component to the practice of the set, since in a real game you will not usually want to set the ball straight ahead [set induction]. In groups of three people with one ball [organizational dimension: demonstration of arrangements in space] I want Player 1 to pass to Player 2, who then sets the ball to Player 3. To use the set effectively you will need to face the player you are setting the ball to and not the player you are receiving the ball from [the motor task]. For this practice we are not as concerned with control of the ball as we are with making sure you get your feet and body in position to set the ball [the goal orientation]. Issues related to how best to present motor tasks to learners in group instructional settings are made complex by the long-term (progressions over lessons and years) and multidimensional (cognitive, psychomotor, and affective Judith E. Rink is with the Physical Education Department at the University of South Carolina, Blatt Physical Education Center, Columbia, SC 29208.

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QUEST, 1994,46,270-280 O 1994 National Association for Physical Education in Higher Education

Task Presentation in Pedagogy

Judith E. Rink

This paper addresses task presentation as an instructional event that is part of a larger, more long-term curricular concern. Task presentation is defined. The research from the classroom literature on teacher clarity and presenting information and from the physical education pedagogy research on task presentation is summarized. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the issues involved in delivering a task presentation within a physical education setting.

Task presentation in the simplest sense involves communicating to the learner what they are to do and how they are to do it. Task presentation is an instructional event, usually having several components: a set induction to the practice, the organizational conditions for practice, and the goal of the practice (Rink, 1993). In the set induction, the teacher's role is to communicate the meaning and importance of what is to be learned to the learner. In the organiza- tional dimension, the teacher in a large group setting must organize people, space, equipment, and time for practice. In the goal orientation, the teacher must communicate the focus or intent of the practice. The following brief episode describes the dimensions of task presentation in the typical physical education setting:

Now we are going to add a directional component to the practice of the set, since in a real game you will not usually want to set the ball straight ahead [set induction]. In groups of three people with one ball [organizational dimension: demonstration of arrangements in space] I want Player 1 to pass to Player 2, who then sets the ball to Player 3. To use the set effectively you will need to face the player you are setting the ball to and not the player you are receiving the ball from [the motor task]. For this practice we are not as concerned with control of the ball as we are with making sure you get your feet and body in position to set the ball [the goal orientation].

Issues related to how best to present motor tasks to learners in group instructional settings are made complex by the long-term (progressions over lessons and years) and multidimensional (cognitive, psychomotor, and affective

Judith E. Rink is with the Physical Education Department at the University of South Carolina, Blatt Physical Education Center, Columbia, SC 29208.

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outcomes) nature of goals in educational settings, as well as by the variability in learner styles, ability, and motivation to learn. In addition, the social context in which learning takes place influences student motivation, attention, and effort. While it is true that groups do not learn, individuals do, there is an art to meeting the learning needs of individuals in group settings.

Three broad knowledge bases inform task presentation in group settings: the research and knowledge base in motor learning, classroom research, and physical education pedagogy. What these knowledge bases have in common is that they all primarily address the idea of task presentation in the context of direct instruction. Direct instruction is highly structured. The learner is given explicit, step-by-step directions on what to do and how to do it. Educators know less about how to present tasks to learners for content that is not highly structured or for situations in which explicit teaching may not be appropriate, such as problem solving strategies toward learning.

Other articles in this special issue have focused on the contributions of motor learning to task presentation. This information will not be duplicated here. Particularly relevant to task presentation are discussions of modeling, verbal cues, and individual differences. Classroom research on teacher clarity and presenting information and physical education pedagogy research on task presentation will be reviewed, followed by a discussion of the limits of our current knowledge and the issues involved.

Classroom Research: Teacher Clarity and Presenting Information

Classroom research has largely investigated relevant material on task pre- sentation under the ideas related-to teacher clarity and presenting information. Teacher clarity was one of the first effective teacher variables identified by the early research on teaching (Brophy & Good, 1986; Bush, Kennedy, & Cruick- shank, 1977; Doyle, 1990; Gage, 1978; Kennedy, Cruickshank, & Bush, 1978; Rosenshine & Furst, 1971) and was one of the most consistent variables identified as being related to teacher effectiveness. Teacher clarity was found to be indepen- dent of teacher knowledge of the subject, related to student achievement, and multidimensional in practice. Investigations into teacher clarity largely involved studies of classroom discourse looking for evidence of lack of clarity (Brophy & Good, 1986). Constructs such as vagueness, mazes (e.g., false starts, redundancy, tangles), discontinuity, and the use of such utterances as "uh" have been identi- fied as negatively related to teacher clarity.

Research on classroom teaching related to practices of giving information has been forced to consider differences between content that is appropriately taught directly and content for which there is no clearly defined procedure to be learned and applied. Rosenshine and Stevens (1986) refer to "well-structured" content, meaning that for which explicit instruction is applicable, and to "ill- structured" content, meaning that for which explicit instruction is not applicable. We know more about the effective presentation of more structured content.

The amount of time spent presenting material seems related to the age of the student, with younger students needing to move into practice situations fairly quickly. A primary role of the teacher is to structure the content for the learner-a

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major part of which is knowing how much information to give the learner at one time, how to relate that information to the learner in meaningful ways, and how to focus the learner on relevant information. The ability to structure content for learners has been identified as part of the pedagogical knowledge of the teacher and is considered a separate ability from the teacher's knowledge of the content (Shulman, 1987). The teacher's use of examples, explanatory links, cues, demon- strations, redundant instructions, and models that help students "relate the new to the familiar" (Reynolds, 1992, p. 19) or the abstract to the concrete are all critical dimensions of explicit instruction (Brophy & Good, 1986; Cruickshank & Kennedy, 1986; Reynolds, 1992).

Rosenshine and Stevens (1986) summarized the classroom research on presenting information to learners by describing the aspects of clear presentations. These qualities of effective presentation of material are summarized as follows and identify rather specifically what teachers can do to clearly present information to learners:

1. Clarity of goals and main points - State the goals and objectives of the presentation. - Focus on one thought, point, or direction at a time. - Avoid digressions. - Avoid ambiguous phrases and pronouns.

2. Step-by-step presentations - Present the material in small steps. - Organize and present the material so that one point is mastered before

the next point is given. - Give explicit step-by-step directions (when possible). - Present an outline when the material is complex.

3. Specific and concrete procedures - Model the skill or process (when appropriate). - Give detailed and redundant information for difficult points. - Provide students with concrete and varied examples.

4. Checking for students' understanding - Be sure that students understand one point before proceeding to the next

point. - Ask the students questions to monitor their comprehension of what has

been presented. - Have students summarize the main points in their own words. - Reteach the parts of the presentation that the students have difficulty

comprehending, either by further teacher explanation or by students tutoring other students.

With the identification of generic characteristics of teacher clarity, educa- tional researchers have moved to investigations that are subject specific. Physical education literature of the past decade has likewise investigated task presentation.

Physical Education Pedagogy: Task Presentation One of the earliest process-product studies in physical education that I

participated in was a case study investigating the effectiveness of 4 elementary physical education teachers who were asked to teach jumping and landing skills

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to second-grade students over a six-lesson sequence (Werner & Rink, 1987). Teachers were free to choose their own strategies and techniques. Students were pre- and posttested on their ability to produce and reduce force in a variety of jumping and landing contexts. When we attempted to discriminate what the more effective teachers did in this study, it became clear that more generic perspectives of teacher effectiveness, such as Academic Learning Time-Physical Education (ALT-PE; Metzler, 1989) and Observation System for Content Development- Physical Education (OSCD-PE; Rink, 1979) variables of teacher behavior, did not discriminate the differences between these teachers. Task presentation of the more effective teachers did discriminate. The task presentations of the more effective teachers were largely characterized by clarity, the use of full demonstra- tion (even when tasks were open in nature and invited individual responses), and delivery using cues that were appropriate in number, accurate, and qualitative.

The Qualitative Measures of Teaching Performance Scale (QMTPS) was developed to describe the differences in task presentation between the teachers in the jumping and landing case study (Rink & Werner, 1989). The specific categories of the instrument appear in the Appendix. At the time we were surprised by the number of tasks delivered in the study that did not use demonstration or give the learner cues for performance, and we were more surprised by the quality of demonstration and cues when they were used. Poor task presentations most often resulted in off-task and unfocused practice. We concluded that it was the total QMTPS score over a period of instruction that was a key variable in discriminating the effective teacher, not necessarily the use of any single compo- nent of task presentation or the analysis of a single task presentation.

The Wemer and Rink (1987) study was replicated in Canada (Gusthart & Sprigings, 1989) with similar results, suggesting that there might very well be a total QMTPS score that is a necessary condition for effectiveness. The total QMTPS score is determined by describing the percentage of tasks delivered by the teacher, with a score in the most desirable category of each variable of the task presentation part of the instrument, and then averaging these totals across the variables. Not every task has to be delivered with every one of the characteristics described, but effective teachers seem to be characterized by having more of their task presentations meet these criteria.

The relationship between the total QMTPS score and student learning was explored by Gusthart and Kelly (1993). A high relationship was reported, although some problems with the design of the study were cited. A more recent study by Gusthart, Kelly, and Rink (1994) investigated the direct relationship between a high total score on the QMTPS and student learning. Nine teachers were asked to teach a volleyball unit to middle school students. Student learning was corre- lated with the teachers' total QMTPS scores for two different skills (volleyball set and serve). The volleyball set was correlated at .73 (p = .01) and the volleyball serve at .53 ( p = .08) with the total QMTPS score of the teacher. All of the teachers in this study utilized direct instruction.

The total QMTPS scores of the 9 teachers ranged from 45 to 70, scores considerably higher than those reported in the elemen& school studies (Gusth- art & Sprigings, 1989; Wemer & Rink, 1989). Correlational work on such small samples is always tenuous; however, given the multidimensional quality of effective teaching, correlations of the magnitude found in these studies are indeed encouraging. Other work by these authors suggests that the content knowl-

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edge and skill ability of the teachers were not related to their effectiveness (Gusthart & Kelly, 1991; Gusthart, Kelly, & Tennant, 1991). This is consistent with Silverman's (1991) review of the pedagogy research investigating the rela- tionship between teacher's knowledge of the subject and student 1earni11~.

The QMTPS is divided into four sections: type ol' task, task presentation, student response, and teacher congruent feedback. In a sense, the QM'I'PS vari- ables for task presentation describe characteristics of direct instruction. The variables used in the QMTPS somewhat overlap the pedagogical dimensions of task presentation, with some categories assessing the content knowledge of the teacher (e.g., accuracy), some categories assessing the pedagogical content knowl- edge of the teacher (e.g., selection of cues), and some categories assessing the communication ability of the teacher (e.g., clarity). The categories of the QMTPS also reflect the motor learning literature on the use and selection of cues and demonstration. It is also interesting to note that the most effective teacher in the original study utilizing the QMTPS (Werner & Rink, 1987) received a high total score on the QMTPS and also used a somewhat indirect approach to the content, suggesting that the instrument may be measuring generic qualities of task presenta- tion appropriate for motor content beyond the simple replication of a motor task.

Several studies in physical education have begun to investigate the dimen- sions of task presentation directly. A recent study by Kwak (1993) compared the initial effects of five different task presentations on the ability of middle school students to execute the lacrosse throw (a novel skill for these students). The dependent variables were the ability to hit a large target area 50 feet away with an overhand throw pattern, process characteristics of the throw pattern, and the ability to remember critical information about the skill. The treatment groups included verbal explanation with partial demonstration, full demonstration only, overload verbal explanation with partial demonstration, and verbal explanation with full demonstrations, summary cues, and verbal/visual rehearsal task presenta- tion. Partial demonstration in this study was considered demonstration of each part but not a demonstration of the whole skill. The different task presentations were videotaped and delivered to individual learners. Kwak concluded that the students in the experimental condition of verbal explanation with full demonstra- tions, summary cues, and verbal/visual rehearsal were more effective in their throws, had better process characteristics of the throw, and remembered more critical information about how to do the throw.

Graham and her colleagues (Graham, 1988; Graham, Hussey, Taylor, & Werner, 1993) have qualitatively analyzed the task presentations of teachers in two different secondary teaching environments. In the first study, investigating the effects of a volleyball unit on student learning, Graham (1988) concluded that effective teachers named the movement task, demonstrated the movement task, communicated the organizational structure for the class, gave negative examples of what was intended, signaled students to listen, summarized expecta- tions, gave students choices among tasks, structured some accountability for performance, and in general gave students a guide for decision making in the class. The second study investigated 3 teachers in a secondary badminton unit over a period of 6 weeks (using both direct and indirect approaches to the content) and characterized effective task presentation as having eight dimensions: making instruction explicit, emphasizing the usefulness of content being presented, struc- turing new content, signaling students' attention, summarizing and repeating

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information, checking for understanding, creating a productive climate for learn- ing, and presenting accountability measures (Graham et al., 1993).

While comprehensive studies describing a more holistic concept of task presentation are important, a necessary extension of such work is to investigate the relationship of the individual components of task presentation to student learning. Two of the more critical areas of study related to task presentation in a physical education setting are the nature of the information the learner needs on the motor task and when they need it. The results of studies that have investigated these topics have not been conclusive.

Masser (1993), for example, has successfully related the teacher's use of cues for performance to skill learning of first-grade students in the forward roll and handstand. In an earlier study she successfully linked the use of refining tasks to student achievement in a fundamental motor pattern (Masser, 1985). The refining task focuses the learner on one or two process characteristics after they have had some opportunity to practice. The two Masser studies support the use of cues and giving the learner information on the process characteristics of performance.

The conclusion reached by Rink, French, Werner, Lynn, and Mays, (1992) was that there seem to be some tasks that do not require the use of critical cues and some tasks that do. Rink et al. (1992) evaluated student responses after each task was delivered, and they found that in certain tasks of a progression for the overhead set in volleyball learners needed information to perform effectively and in certain tasks they did not. For example, learners who received information on how to situate their body to receive a pass from one direction and send it to another direction did considerably better both in terms of immediate performance and in terms of learning than did the learners who did not receive this information. On the other hand, information on how to adapt the pass from individual work to work with a partner or work over a net did not seem essential. The authors concluded that when learners do not automatically adapt their performance to the context of the situation, learners need to be given these cues by the teacher. The results of the study suggested that in some cases a change in environmental conditions of the task automatically produced a change in the motor responses of learners.

The critical nature of the information given to learners was also a conclusion of Brown (1994). A direct relationship was described between what the teacher focused the learner on and the process characteristics of performance. In this study, inappropriate cues were unintentionally given the learners for aspects of the skill. Analysis of the process characteristics of performance indicated that students had regressed in performance in some characteristics from pre- to post- test. Students learned what the teacher had taught, even when what the teacher had taught was inappropriate.

Brown (1994) was attempting to relate the use of repeated demonstrations with learning how to field and throw a ball. One experimental group received a demonstration of the initial task and each extension task. The other experimental group received repeated demonstrations of each task and extension task. The increased number of demonstrations in this ecologically valid setting investigating fielding and then throwing a ball did not seem to result in additional learning beyond the group that received demonstration for each task and extension of the task. This finding is not consistent with Hand and Sidaway (1992) who reported

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higher retention in a laboratory setting with more frequent demonstration. The differences in results for this study may be related to the number of demonstrations the limited group received or to the group instructional setting. Each change in task conditions (extension tasks) was demonstrated for the limited group. Additional demonstrations during practice may not have been necessary. It is also possible that students were getting information on performance from watching each other, which would reduce the need for teacher demonstration.

Issues Related to Task Presentation

The research from motor learning, the classroom, and the physical education setting is quite consistent in terms of recommendations for task presentation in direct instruction situations. The ability of the teacher to select relevant informa- tion and to effectively communicate that information to the learners is generic to teaching effectiveness. One might conclude that when the learner does not perform a skill correctly or appropriately, either the task was inappropriate or the task resent at ion was ineffective.

ask presentations can be ineffective because the teacher (a) does not know the content and therefore cannot present accurate or appropriate information, (b) does not select the appropriate information for a particular group of learners or the appropriate strategy for communicating that information, or (c) fails to clearly communicate that information. Like the work on teacher clarity, and most teaching functions, it is easier to determine when a task presentation has been ineffective than it is to specifically prescribe what a good task presentation would be for a particular situation. This is largely the strategy of the QMTPS (see Appendix).

Direct instruction is more effective when teachers explain a skill briefly using carefully selected cues (critical features) of a skill, give full demonstrations, and encourage students to verbally or visually rehearse the pattern. The more complex the information, the more teachers need to organize material for clarity. The criteria defined by Rosenshine and Stevens (1986; see list in Classroom Research section) are relevant here, and there is no reason to believe that they are any less relevant for presenting motor tasks than other kinds of information.

Although research in physical education pedagogy clearly suggests the importance of teacher cues, demonstrations, and the like to student learning, it also suggests that not every task presented need have all the characteristics of the ideal task presentation. Perhaps that is why variables such as the total QMTPS score are more related to effectiveness than any single characteristic of task presentation.

As work on task presentation continues, researchers will need to identify the relationship of contextual variables to specific characteristics of task presents- tion. The nature of the content and the intent of the learning experience, the characteristics of the learner (including age, skill level, motivation, and learning style), and other situational variables related to the learning environment and setting have the potential to have differential effects on how a task would best be presented.

Motor tasks in physical education traditionally have been presented using direct instruction. The assumption of this model is that explicit information on process characteristics of performance is critical to learning. Alternative strate-

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gies, however, have been suggested in the literature that question the need to give learners explicit information on how to execute motor skills. These strategies provide alternatives to "telling the learner what to do." For instance, Gallwey's "inner game" strategies have suggested that instructors use verbal instruction sparingly and never describe the actual movements (Madden & McGown, 1989). The assumption is that if the instructor focuses on sensory feedback for the learner, the movement skills will automatically come through a heightened awareness of personal experience.

A second alternative to direct instruction suggests that the teacher only needs to set an environment (e.g., a high target to throw to or a distant hurdle to jump to) to elicit the appropriate movement response (Sweeting & Rink, 1994). This environmental approach has particular appeal to work with young children and is largely based on the assumption that if the teacher sets environmental conditions appropriately and focuses the learner on the intent of the movement, learners will organize the movement response appropriately.

A "games for understanding" approach has also been suggested in the literature as an alternative to teaching motor skills directly in game settings. The games for understanding approach suggests that the strategies of a game should be taught first and the skill requirements reduced. Instruction is introduced as the need for skill execution develops through the need to execute strategies (Bunker & Thorpe, 1982).

Several research studies have emerged in the pedagogy area that have largely contrasted the effects of direct instruction and each of the alternatives described above. In each case the limited number of investigations makes any conclusions premature. However, in each case there is support for the notion that an inner game orientation, environmental design, and games for understanding approach can be as effective as direct instruction when used in the instructional contexts of school settings (Madden & McGown, 1989; Rink, French, & Werner, 1990; Sweeting & Rink, 1994; Taylor, Hussey, Werner, Rink & French, 1993).

The conditions and limits of these directions, as well as the characteristics of good task presentation in these contexts, have yet to be identified. Recent work by researchers in motor learning and control investigating the underlying mechanisms governing motor responses, as well as more applied work by re- searchers in pedagogy, should contribute to our understanding of these processes and should help instructors improve the effectiveness of task presentations and learning in physical education settings.

References Brophy, J., & Good, T. (1986). Teacher behavior and student achievement. In M. Wittrock

(Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 328-375). New York: Mac- millan.

Brown, S. (1994). The effects of limited and repeated demonstrations of the development offielding and throwing in children. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Univer- sity of South Carolina.

Bunker, D., & Thorpe, R. (1982). A model for the teaching of games in secondary schools. Bulletin of Physical Education, 18(1), 5-8.

Bush, A., Kennedy, J., & Cruickshank, D. (1977). An empirical investigation of teacher clarity. Journal of Teacher Education, 28(2), 53-58.

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Cruickshank, D., & Kennedy, J. (1986). Teaching and Teacher Education, 2(1), 43-67. Doyle, W. (1990). Themes in teacher education. In M. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of

research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 3-24). New York: Macmillan. Gage, N.L. (1978). The scient@c basis of the art of teaching. New York: Columbia

University, Teachers College Press. Graham, K.C. (1988). A qualitative analysis of an effective teacher's movement task

presentations during a unit of instruction. The Physical Educator, 11, 187-195. Graham, K.C., Hussey, K., Taylor, K., & Werner, P. (1993). A study of verbal presentations

of three effective teachers. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 64 (Suppl.), 87A. (Abstract)

Gusthart, J.L., & Kelly, I.W. (1991). Teachers motor skills in volleyball and student learning. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 72, 795-801.

Gusthart, J.L., & Kelly, I.W. (1993). Teachers instructional variables in volleyball and students' improvement in motor skill. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 76, 101 5-1024.

Gusthart, J.L., Kelly, I.W., & Rink, J. (1994). The validity of the QMTPS as a measure of teacher effectiveness. Manuscript submitted for publication.

Gusthart, J.L., Kelly, I.W., & Tennant, M., (1991). Relationship of teacher's knowledge skills and students' learning on a volleyball unit. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 73, 349-350.

Gusthart, J.L., & Sprigings, E.J. (1989). Student learning as a measure of teacher effective- ness in physical education. Journal ofTeaching in Physical Education, 8,298-31 1.

Hand, J., & Sidaway, B. (1992). Relative frequency of modeling effects on the performance and retention of a motor skill. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 63 (Suppl.), 57F. (Abstract)

Kennedy, J.J., Cruickshank, D.R., Bush, A.J., & Meyers, B. (1978). Additional investiga- tions into the nature of teacher clarity. Journal of Educational Research. 72, 3-10.

Kwak, E.C. (1993). The initial effects of various taskpresentation conditions on students' performance of the lacrosse throw. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Univer- sity of South Carolina.

Madden, G., & McGown, C. (1989). The effect of the inner game method versus the progressive method on learning motor skills. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 9, 39-48.

Masser, L. (1985). The effect of refinement on student achievement in a fundamental motor skill K-6. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 6, 174-182.

Masser, L. (1993). Critical cues help first-grade students' achievement in handstands and forward rolls. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 12, 301-312.

Metzler, M. (1989). A review of research on time in sport pedagogy. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 6 , 271-285.

Reynolds, A. (1992). What is competent beginning teaching? A review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 62, 1-35.

Rink, J.E. (1979). Development of a system for the observation of content development in physical education. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Ohio State University.

Rink, J.E. (1993). Teaching physical education for learning (2nd ed.). St. Louis: Times Mior/Mosby.

Rink, J., French, K., & Werner, P. (1990). Tactical awareness as the focus for ninth grade badminton. Paper presented at the International Conference of the International Association for Physical Education in Higher Education, Atlanta, GA.

Rink, J., French, K., Werner, P., Lynn, S., & Mays, A. (1992). The influence of content development on the effectiveness of instruction. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 11, 139-149.

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Rink, J.E., & Wemer, P. (1989). Qualitative measures of teaching performance scale. In P.W. Darst, D.B. Zakrajsek, & V.H. Mancini (Eds.), Analyzing physical education and sport instruction (2nd ed., pp. 269-275). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Rosenshine, B., & Furst, N. (1971). Research on teacher performance criteria. In B.O. Smith (Ed.), Research in teacher education: A symposium (pp.37-72). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Rosenshine, B., & Stevens, R. (1986). Teaching functions. In M. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 376-391). New York: Macmillan.

Shulman, L.S. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review. 57, 1-22.

Silverman, S. (1991). Research on teaching in physical education: A review and commen- tary. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 62, 352-364.

Sweeting, T., & Rink, J.E. (1994). Effects of direct instruction and environmental instruc- tional strategy on learning the standing broad jump for 5- and 7-year-olds. Manu- script submitted for publication.

Taylor, J.K., Hussey, K.G., Werner, P.H., Rink, J.E., & French, K.E. (1993). The effects of strategy, skill and strategy and skill instruction on skill and knowledge in ninth grade badminton. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 64 (Suppl.), 96A. (Abstract)

Werner. P., & Rink, J. E. (1987). Case studies of teacher effectiveness in second grade physical education. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 8, 280-297.

Appendix

Categories of the Qualitative Measures of Teaching Pei$ormance Scale (QMTPS)

Type of Task Informing: A task that names, defines, or describes a skill or movement concept with no

focus other than to just do it; usually the first task in a sequence of tasks.

Refining: A task that qualitatively seeks to improve motor performance. Most often this type of task focuses on improving the mechanics of the skill or tactical/strategic aspects of play.

Extending: A task that quantitatively changes the original task content by manipulating the level of difficulty of conditions under which the task is performed or that seeks a variety of responses.

Repeat: A simple repetition of the previous task.

Applying: A task that focuses student performance outside the movement itself. It usually is competitive or self-testing in nature.

Task Presentation Clarity: Teacher's verbal explanation/directions communicate a clear idea of what to do

and how to do it. This judgement is confinned on the basis of student movement responses to the presentation and is relative to the situation.

Yes: Students proceed to work in a focused way on what the teacher asked them to.

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No: Students exhibited confusion, questions, off-task behavior, or lack of intent to deal with the specifics of the task.

Demonstration: Modeling desired performance executed by the teacher, student(s), and/ or visual aids.

Yes: Full model of desired performance. Partial: Incomplete model of task performance exhibiting only a portion of the desired

movement. No: No attempt to model the movement task.

Appropriate number of cues: The degree to which the teacher presents sufficient informa- tion about the movement task without overloading the learner.

Appropriate: Three or fewer new learning cues related to the performance of the movement task.

Inappropriate: Either more than three or no new learning cues related to the performance of the movement.

None given: No attempt at providing learning cues.

Accuracy of cues: The degree to which the information presented was technically correct and reflected accurate mechanical principles.

Accurate: All information presented was correct. Inaccurate: One or more incidences of incorrect information. None given: No cues given.

Qualitative cues provided: Verbal information provided the learner on the process or mechanics of movement.

Yes: Teacher's explanation or direction included at least one aspect of the process of performance.

Yes: Teacher's explanation or directions included no information on the process of perfor- mance.

Student Responses Appropriate to the Task Focus The degree to which student responses reflect an intent to perform the task as stated by

the teacher. All: No more than two students viewed exhibited inappropriate responses. Partial: Three or more students exhibited inappropriate behavior. None: No students exhibited appropriate behavior.

Teacher Specific Congruent Feedback The degree to which teacher feedback during an activity is congruent with (matched to)

the focus of the task. Yes: More than two incidences were evident in which teacher feedback was congruent

with the task. Partial: One or two incidences of congruent feedback were evident. No: No congruent feedback was given.

For more complete information on the QMTPS see Rink and Werner (1989).