ABSTRACT
Within the general discourse on physical education, there has been an increasing level of frustration with respect to the misalignment between current practice and the contemporary physical culture within which young people engage outside of school (Tinning, 2007), together with a lack of student voice within curriculum decision-making (Enright & O’Sullivan, 2012). One of the main targets within this discussion has been the multiactivity model of physical education, in which students participate in short units of instruction and where essentially all curricular and instructional decisions are made by the teacher. Kirk (2010, p. 41) has critiqued this molecular approach that puts the focus on discrete, non-game-like skills as a pedagogy he calls “physical education as sport techniques.” Siedentop (1994, p. 7) has also criticized the presentation of “decontextualized physical education,” in which games and sports are taught in ways which rarely resemble the authentic sport experience, and in which there is infrequent use of modified games that promote student decision-making and understanding of gameplay.
