ABSTRACT
Play with Purpose derives from the Game Sense approach (GSA). The GSA is a game-based teaching/coaching approach founded on athlete-centred inquiry teaching styles, such as guided discovery where well-considered questioning is a characteristic. It was intended as an alternative to the traditionally dominant transmission pedagogy of directive and practice style instruction of games teaching. The athlete-centred narrative of player responsibility for learning associated with the GSA challenges traditional directive teaching of ‘sport-as-sport-techniques’ taught through demonstrate-explain-practice. In technique-based sport teaching and coaching, deviations from a prescribed common (or optimum) idea of a movement model are typically considered ‘incorrect’ requiring a teacher/coach intervention to ‘fix’. Commonly, there is an emphasis on movement cues focusing on players attaining specific body movements. Within a game and sport context, the complexity the authors refer to in the moment of play is explained as a process of continual adaptation and responsiveness to a constantly changing environment.
