Gender Differences in Student-Designed Games

• In Event: Creating Pedagogical Spaces for Social Justice Issues in Physical Education

Abstract

Student-designed games (SDG) is the process in physical education classes in which students create, refine, organize and practice their own games within certain limits established by the teacher (Hastie, 2010). While research on SDG has focused on different teaching methodologies and learning outcomes; only one study (Hastie & André, 2012) has approached gender differences when using SDG pedagogies. The purpose of this research was to analyze gender differences during two different SDG units (with and without technology integration). The results reported that male and female students differ in three aspects when they create their own games: (i) sources of enjoyment; (ii) communication; and (iii) game characteristics. These differences may require different forms of approaches and pedagogies when teaching SDG.

Authors

• Mauro H. Andre, Illinois State University

• Peter A. Hastie, Auburn University