1. Children tend to be less active as they get older, and boys are usually more active than girls.
2. The majority of adults are less active than is recommended for their health.
3. We know very little about what determines weather children are active or not.
4. Attitudes (Haltung) are about thoughts and feelings
5. Attitudes affect behaviour via intentions (Absicht).
6. Different attitudes can be caused by the same belief but a different value (Wert) attached to the behaviour.
7. Direct experience and interpersonal communication help attitudes develop.
8. Intrinsic motivation is motivation for its own sake.
9. Intrinsic motivation is connected to feelings of well-being.
10. Enjoyment is important for motivation
11. Matching your skills to a suitable challenge boosts motivation.
12. Intrinsic Motivation includes enjoyment.
13. Sport enjoyment includes pleasure, liking, and fun.
14. Enjoyment could be related to positive, arousing emotions.
15. Childhood activity sometimes predicts adult activity.
16. In making the move from school to adult life, many factors can affect physical activity.

1. Achievement goals are dispositions brought to sport and P.E. by the child.
2. When ability and effort are not differentiated, they lead to a task goal.
3. An ego-oriented child seeks competence through comparison.
4. Motivation can be inferred from task choice, effort, and perseverance (Ausdauer).
5. An ego-involved child may try to win with little effort.
6. A task-involved child prefers challenges.
7. A task goal is associated with the belief that sport ability can be changed with learning.
8. A task goal appears to be linked to feelings of control.
9. Ego orientation involves assessing performance using external normative criteria.
10. Assess students about personal progress.
11. Offer individual challenges.

1. P.E. teachers can make a difference if they understand student motivation.
2. When task involved, student focus on their own improvement and skill mastery.
3. When ego involved, students focus on other people.
4. After fitness test, task-involved students said they tried harder.
5. The P.E. teacher can affect whether children are task or ego involved.
6. The class climate concerns the orientation of the class and the ways tasks are organised and performed.
7. Positive motivation often stems from task-oriented P.E. classes.

1. Outcomes (Ergebnisse) result from good planning, reflected teaching, and knowledge of the dynamic teaching-learning process.
2. The social-cognitive approach (Zugang, Annäherung) considers (betrachten) the meaning pupils attach (verbunden sein) to events in P.E.
3. Pupils’ meanings/cognitions (Erkenntnis) influence their affect and behaviour.
4. The P.E. teacher may shape the teaching-learning atmosphere.
5. The focus is on outcomes such as motivation, achievement (Leistung) strategies, affect, self-perceptions (Selbstwahrnehmung), social-moral reasoning, and behaviour.
6. Task (Aufgabe) involvement is desirable.
7. Effort is a double-edged (doppelschneidig) sword because it has a different implications (Auswirkung) when seen as co-varying with ability (Fähigkeit) or not.
8. Children are by nature task oriented.
9. Mistakes are an integral part of learning.
10. Perceived (wahrnehmen) autonomy is a basic element of intrinsic motivation.
11. A task achievement goal is associated with better attention, less anxiety, and stronger persistence (Hartnäckigkeit).
12. Low ability pupils take motivational advantage of a task-oriented motivational climate.
13. A task-oriented motivational climate makes pupils focus on the learning activities and see the challenge of co-operation.
14. Pupils more easily enhance (steigern) their perceived competence when the P.E. situation invites them to define mastery (Herrschaft) and ability in terms of effort (Anstrengung) and progress.
15. The motivational climate may have a shaping effect upon dispositional goals.
16. A sense of self-determination (Selbstbestimmung) seems to reduce fear of failure and enhance persistance including among pupils low in perceived ability.
17. A task-oriented motivational climate may prevent differential treatment (Behandlung) of low and high achieving pupils in P.E.
18. Enhancing self-esteem (Selbstachtung) is considered an important educational objective.
19. Self-esteem is multidimensional and organised hierarchically.
20. Pupils tend to be motivated to enhance or preserve (beschützen) their self-esteem.
21. Devaluing (abwerten) the personal importance of competence may be detrimental (schädlich) to motivation and lead (verleiten) to avoidance (meiden) behaviour.
22. Self-esteem is a product of social interactions and reflected appraisals (Abschätzung) from significant others.
23. Self-esteem is also influenced by social-comparison processes and attributions.
24. Self-esteem may be influenced most readily through changes in perceived self-efficacy (Selbstwirksamkeit) within specific activities.
25. P.E. educators should give appropriate (passend) and contingent feedback.
26. Physical education programmes seem able to enhance pupils’ self-perceptions.
27. The social-cognitive learning theory (Bandura) and the structural-developmental theories (Kohlberg) are the two main theoretical perspectives for the understanding of social-moral development.
28. Modelling (vorbildlich) and social reinforcement (Verstärkung) may promote social-moral development.
29. Social-moral outcomes may be enhanced through pupils’ involvement in moral dilemmas and conflict solving.
30. Improving (verbessern) social-reasoning abilities seems possible.
31. Holding an ego/performance-oriented achievement goal may undermine (untergraben) the value attached to fairness and justice.
32. Psychological outcomes in P.E. are influenced by a complex interplay of individual cognitive factors and situational characteristics.

1. The self is a holistic system. How we perceive, interpret, and give meanings to reality and to ourselves depends on the whole system.
2. The self-system consists of deep and surface structures.
3. Self-esteem means a feeling of being satisfied with oneself and feeling that one os a person of worth.
4. Perceived comeptence refers to feelings of mastery in relation to a certain area or skill.
5. A belief in one’s ability creates expectations of success, which in turn directs choice and persistence in behaviour.
6. Self-perceptions are central psychological resources. They are connected with motivation, psychological well-being, and interpersonal behaviour.
7. In late childhood (years 8 to 12), comparison with others becomes an important element of the self.
8. In adolescence, social interaction with age-mates is important.
9. Self-perceptions are most negative in early adolescence (years 12 to 14).
10. On the average (Durchschnitt), self-perceptions are positive and optimistic.
11. Positive illusions may be useful and adaptive when an individual receives negative feedback or feels otherwise threatened.
12. Adolescents show highly stable self-perceptions.
13. Typical features of a failure-trap strategy are under-achievement, pessimistic goal setting, task-irrelevant behaviour, and low belief in one’s own influence.
14. Students with physical disabilities may find developing and maintaining positive physical self-perceptions more challenging than their non-disabled peers.
15. Including children with disabilities in regular physical education with the help of a consultant has proved to be an effective support mechanism for such schoolchildren.
16. Gender differences consistent with sexual stereotypes occur in specific facets of self- concept.
17. Girls are taught tha being physically attractive is intricately interwoven (vermischen) with pleasing others and that it secures the love and appreciation of others.
18. Physically active groups typically show more favourable perceptions of physical competence than sedentary groups.
19. Targets for educators who wish to maximise the opportunities for the development of self-perceptions include providing helpful information about competence, information about importance, and social support.

1. In very low or very high levels of physical intensity, the informationprocessing system is under-activated or over-activated. Thus, an optimum level of arousal produces optimum performance.
2. The effects of physical exertion (Anstrengung) on the ability to concentrate and to be attentive differ significantly depending mainly on the intesity and the duration of the exercise.
3. Even well-practised subjects reach a point beyond which they cannot properly attend to the task and where decrements occur (vorkommen).
4. Strenuous (anstrengend) physical exercise reduces mental capacity as intensity increases.
5. Light-to-moderate physical exertion may facilitate (erleichtern) reaction time and movement time.
6. Even a simple task, which requires (erfordern) little central nervous system processing, may be negatively affected by taxing exercise.
7. Memory capacity is the function most sensitive to the effects of fatigue after physical exercise.
8. Exercise may have a warming-up, and thus a facilitating, effect on motor learning.
9. Light exercise is ideal for learning and performing the task, whereas performance decreases with heavy fatigue.
10. Children recover very soon after not only moderate exercise conditions but also heavy physical exercise. This means that children quite quickly become ready to perform cognitive tasks.
11. No studies have shown that exercise hampers (behindern) cognitive functioning so long as the intensity of exercise is at low or moderate level. On the contrary, some studies have indicated that light and moderate exercise facilitates cognitive functioning.
12. Some research findings have indicated that the influence of physical exertion on motor learning and performance tends to be illustrated by the inverted-U form. This means, that very low levels of physical exertion have little or no effect. In contrast, during high levels of physical exertion as well as in fatigue conditions, some negative effects may occur.
13. Light-to-moderate physical exertion may have a facilitating effect on the information- processing system. Heavy and prolonged physical exercise may have a debilitating (schwächend) effect on the information-processing system, thereby increasing the possibility that cognitive functioning will be negatively influenced.
14. P.E. may be useful to students’ cognitive functioning so lang as the content, pedagogical methods, and techniques of the exercise bouts are properly organised.
15. If a class starts with warm-up exercises, continues with increased physical loads, and gradually decreases loads at the end of the lesson, a physical education programme is unlikely to be detrimental to the school activities that follow. In that case, P.E. classes might be proceded by, or inserted between, various classes without impairing students’ academic learning.
16. The real value of this knowledge will be realised by you who have the responsibility for organising and teaching P.E. and sport activities.

1. The way people perceive their own capabilities is a main determinant of aquiring new skills. Positive perceptions stimulate themo to try to master new tasks, negative perceptions demotivate the mastery of new tasks.
2. The concept of perceived competence expresses the feelings a person has about his or her ability to deal successfully with a certain set of tasks.
3. Ther perception of one’s competence differentiates into perceptions about cognitive, social and physical or motor abilities.
4. Several scientific instruments have been developed to measure feelings of competence in children and adolescents.
5. Adaptations of these measurements also have been made for special populations, for example, children with cerebral palsy, children with mental retardation, and others.
6. Researchers have hypothesised that higher levels of perceived motor competence are positively related to more intense interest in physical education and sport.
7. Research shows that one’s own perception of motor competence is an unreliable source for establishing one’s own motor skill level.
8. The estimation of one’s own abilities depends on both external & internal factors, for example, the judgements of peers & a child’s attribution style.
9. Some children over-estimate & some under-estimate their performance in the physical- motor domain.
10. Physical education should also address children’s unrealistic perceptions of their own motor skill level.
11. Unrealistic perceptions of one’s own abilities make children set their goals too low or too high. Both cases will lead to an ineffective and ansuccessfull interaction with the environment. Finally, this will result in demotivation related to attempting new tasks & to the attribution of negative self-perceptions.
12. The developmental value of P.E. is not only that children learn new motor skills but also that they derive positive feelings of competence from mastery of new motor skills. This, in turn, has a positive impact on the development of the child’s self-esteem.
13. The task of the P.E. teacher is to provide opportunities for children to evaluate their own performance and to help them make the connection between the actual movement execution & expectations about the movement outcome.

1. A distinction can be made between perceived difficulty & perceived exertion.
2. Perceived difficulty reflects the amount of resources that the subject has invested to reach a given level of performance.
3. Perceived difficulty is more an assessment of goal difficulty than an assessment of task difficulty.
4. The more difficult the goal is, the higher the performance.
5. Goals must be difficult but realistic.
6. Unrealistic goals do not necessarily lead to bad performances.
7. The sensitivity to difficulty increases when objective difficulty increases.
8. Each subject seems to be characterised by an individual sensitivity to difficulty.
9. The sensitivity to difficulty seems related to individual variables, such as personality or expertise.
10. Sex roles influence the sensitivity to difficulty.
11. Some specific scales allow pracitcal assessment of perceived difficulty.
12. Subjects’ conceptions about the nature of the resources required greatly influence learning & performance.
13. Motivational orientation is related to typical conceptions about competence.
14. Teachers must promote mastery motivational climates.

1. The stages in development of person perception include behavioral comparisons, then psychological construct, and then psychological comparison.
2. The development of person perception parallels Piaget’s stages of cognitive development.
3. Toddlers are aware that people can cause events, pre-schoolers being to distinguish intentional and unintentional social actions, and primary school children start referring to stable personal attributes in their person descriptions.
4. Children develop through four stages of social perspective taking: from egocentrism to the perspective of the generalized other.
5. Emphatic arousal may lead to sympathy reactions ranging from egocentrism to altruism.
6. Two kinds of altruism exist: autonomous (genuine) and normative (calculating).
7. Children learn that altruism pays off.
8. Parents stimulate empathic responses in their pre-schoolers.
9. Primary school children become more helpful and generous bu not in all circumstance.
10. The development of role-taking skills, pro-social moral reasoning, and an altruistic self- concept promotes altruistic behavior in primary school children.
11. Some personal and situational characteristics make difference.
12. Loving educators who encourage, model and create non-aggressive environments promote altruistic behavior in children.
13. Three types of aggressive behavior are hostile aggression, instrumental aggression, and assertiveness.
14. Aggression is also a question of interpretation.
15. Aggression is not innate, it is learned.
16. Boys are more aggressive than girls.
17. Parental child-rearing practices influence children’s aggression.
18. Eliminate the payoffs for aggression to try to eliminate the aggression.
19. Non-aggressive adults, models and coaches show constructive conduct in stressful and frustrating situations.
20. Organizing on-aggressive (play) environments may help a lot in eliminating aggressive conduct.
21. Empathy training is also effective in inhibiting aggression.

1. The research literature yields very little evidence about the favorable influence of physical education on moral development.
2. On the other hand, a number of reliable studies have shown that physical education can influence moral development.
3. The effects of physical education on moral development depend largely on teaching methods or teaching styles.
4. Morality has three components: an affective component, a cognitive component and a behavioral component.
5. Kohlberg’s stages mainly concern the cognitive component of morality. They describe the development of individuals’ cognitive ability to make moral judgements.
6. Follow the Golden Rule: Do to others what you wish they would do to you.
7. The moral orientation of individuals develops through relationships with parents and peers, especially friends. The core processes in this set-up are thus social international and include such components as discussion, negotiation, and consensus seeking. The moral knowledge acquired through participation in interactions is both affective and cognitive.
8. The development of a sociomoral perspective requires, in addition to participation in interactions, mutuality or role taking.
9. Autonomous mortality is independent of external pressures. I is based on principals of co-operation and mutual respect and on the notion of subjective responsibility.
10. Whit peers, children discover a social system that is created together with others, one that is open to modification and gives a sense of mutual understanding.
11. Moral development towards moral autonomy means developing the capacity to make moral judgements, have role-taking ability, feeling responsible, and developing affections and attitudes towards other people.
12. Key words in the constructivist learning process include the learner’s own activity and interaction between learner and environment.
13. The main role of the teacher in constructivist moral education is to facilitate moral development by providing a challenging environment rich in cognitive and social stimulation.
14. If the promotion of moral development in physical education is he goal, many opportunities should exist for dialogue and co-operation as well as possibilities for experiencing moral conflicts.
15. If an interactional teaching method is systematically applied, students’ pro-social behaviour and social relationships can be developed.
16. The tension-packed situations of games and competitions in physical education are valuable form oral education because they concern not only moral reasoning but also affective and behavioural components of morality.
17. The spectrum of teaching styles helps teachers to organize peer interaction and to share responsibility with students.
18. A mastery-oriented motivational climate is important form oral education. Your role as a teacher is to create such a climate.
19. Instead of declarative statements, use interrogative verbalization, for example, some kind of Socratic method.

1. Social interaction is a commonly used term to describe the behaviour & influence processes within a group. Each member of a group is able to communicate with every other group member.
2. Communication is a genuine part of interaction. It means that a sender gives messages to a receiver & vice versa.
3. The social interaction in P.E. thus refelcts hierarchical relationships (e.g. in teacher- student interaction), affiliative relationship (like in friendship patterns of student groups), and involvement (e.g. the teacher’s interest in the task or in the student’s progress).
4. Due to the specific conditions in P.E., the non-verbal & espacially the environmental channel are more important and more often used than in other subjects.
5. The environmental channel encompasses those communicative acts that use the physical environment as a tool of communication. This includes all kinds of territorial behaviours that use the environment for signalling certain messages.
6. An interpretation of non-verbal & environmental behaviours depends on the social context & the specific roles occupied by the interaction partners.
7. The main non-verbal signals include physical appearance, gestures, facial expression, touching, posture & voice.
8. The face is the most expressive medium of non-verbal communication.
9. Non-verbal communication in P.E. serves two important functions: the social & the content in social interaction. Thus, non-verbal signals play a part in the social processes as well as in the task of skill teaching.
10. Four factors contribute to the fact that teachers are able to confirm their positive (& their negative) expectations towards the student’s learning progress. These factors include the socioemotional climate, feedback, the input & output teachers are able to initiate.
11. Teachers form expectancies built upon impressions inferred from students’ characteristics like stereotype, physical attractiveness & gender. They communicate these expectancies to teh students in subtle ways & become self-fulilling prophecies as a result of social-interaction processes.
12. Rating procedures, questionnaires & behaviour observation systems are helpful tools for assessing social interaction in P.E.
13. Teacher-student interaction – in P.E. as well as in other subjects – has been mostly concerned with effective and/or desirable teacher behaviours. Students’ behaviour is seen as a direct consequence of teacher behaviour, although of course students & teachers influence each other.
14. P.E. is a natural practise ground for social interaction & an opporunity for observing social processes. These are seen within groups as well as between groups.
15. Teachers are social models of interaction processes. Students learn from their teachers’ behaviours. Teachers are able to influence social interaction by means of group formation, by various modes of communication & teaching and by encouraging a positive climate.
16. Interaction in P.E. is a two-way street, though the amount of each partner’s influence may differ.

1. The teacher should be aware of developments in the interaction patterns in the classroom. This can help the instructor to manage the classroom to reach curriculum goals and to exercise the social skills needs to cope with life challenges, conflicts, and tensions.
2. The distinction between the task & the emotional undercurrent is a basic characteristic of group dynamics.
3. The basis for a group is interdependence.
4. The basis for a team is interdependence and a common goal.
5. The socioemotional aspects of group functioning can be describing in a limited number of dimensions.
6. A sociogram is a map in which the relationships are drawn with respect to the basic dimension.
7. The topic is what the group members talk about explicitly. The issue is he group members underlying concern and is mostly implicit.
8. Group development models describe the evolution of the relationships in a group in a sequence of stages. The term development applies an evolution towards more mature functioning.
9. Stages of group development interact with stages of personal development.
10. The science of P.E. focuses on the description (prescription) of general principles. The art of P.E: involves recognizing when, how, and to what extent to individualize these general principles.
11. The P.E: class is a privileged situation in which to observe sociogram positions.
12. Facilitating group development means helping the group to deal with is subsequent issues.
13. Strategies to facilitate group development include addressing the issue, choosing suitable tasks, and adjusting the structure and the rules.
14. At stage 1 you should present a variety or group activities. Organize a class setting that invites interaction. Clearly articulate expectations and norms, and live up to them yourself.
15. At stage 2 you should present activities that allow contract in dyads and triads. Avoid teaching complex skills. Let students choose their own subgroups. Pay special attention to respect for rules. Understand students’ hostility as an attempt to gain independence.
16. At stage 3 you should present task in subgroups. Encourage varying subgroups that include less well-known class members. Facilitate and structure debate between students. Assign responsibility to students.
17. At stage 4 you should compose mixed-ability groups working towards a common goal.
18. At stage 5, the class is mature, accepts responsibility for group life and group task, and is able to organize itself.
19. Guidelines that seem to be mutually exclusive at first sight may simply apply to different stages in a group’s life.

Ariane Weber & Bettina Spinnler (12.6.2007)