Learning to teach and play futsal using digital tablets: What knowledge do sports science students mobilize?

Abstract There is little research on the knowledge mobilized by sports science students when they learn to play a sport by learning to teach it. This study focuses on the benefits of using digital tablets to foster this learning during a university teaching module in futsal with students in the second year of a sports science bachelor’s degree. We compare the knowledge mobilized by these students during self-confrontation interviews (based on video recordings of the sessions), game situations, reciprocal coaching and debates of ideas. We then identify the nature of this knowledge and the strategies for its mobilization in context using a framework mainly based on didactics in physical education (Amade-Escot, 2006; Armour, 2011) and on pedagogical content knowledge studies (Shulman, 1986). The students were divided into two experimental conditions following the same pedagogical curriculum. The students in condition 1 used digital tablets to film themselves, tag videos and discuss the recordings. The students in condition 2 did not use tablets. The interviews were conducted twice during the teaching module: first during period 1 (beginning of the module) and then during period 2 (end of the module). The results show that students in condition 1 were more likely to mobilize shared knowledge, make decisions through cooperation and even devolve the construction of tactical reasoning and knowledge by their peers following the didactic approach of the faculty teacher as early as period 1. This promoted access to the construction and meaning of teaching and learning content. These results are discussed in light of the current challenges within educational systems and of the joint development of interactional skills for learning to cooperate and even to teach.