Section archive - Theories & Approaches

This article argues that pedagogical literacy is an important cognitive tool for a developed conceptualisation of pedagogical content knowledge and that, by extension, being pedagogically literate is an integral feature of being a professional teacher.

This study explored the reasons people choose physical education teaching as a profession and investigated the relationship of these choices with motivation. 324 Physical education pre-service teachers completed the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) and a measure of reasons for choosing physical education teaching. Confident interpersonal service reasons were linked with intrinsic motivation; whereas sport and physical activity reasons were related to extrinsic motivation. Enrolling because teaching seemed easy was linked with amotivation.

In this article, the author explores how Michel Foucault’s notion of the “care of the self” might provide a conceptual basis for resistance to the normalizing practices and disciplinary power associated with high-stakes accountability and resulting educational practices. The author suggests that to shift attention from limited notions of the self toward expansive and creative possibilities for constituting the self requires clarity on what it means by the educated self in a context of accountability.

This study examines the pedagogical foundations of modern educational (computer video) games. Specifically, Cooper’s [Cooper, H. (1985, Mar 31–April 4). A taxonomy of literature reviews. In Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL] literature review framework was used to locate and examine relevant literature and games (published between the years 2000 and 2007) and to organize and report findings. A total of 50 articles and 55 educational games met specified selection criteria.Analysis of the games and supporting literature revealed several patterns of practice that may be used to guide future research and development of educational games.