Iggulden, Joseph Andrew (2024) An ecological dynamics perspective on whether the manipulation of task constraints influences children’s emergent gameplay behaviours during small-sided games. Masters thesis, York St John University.

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Abstract

Background
The Constraints-led approach (CLA) has been promoted as an effective contemporary pedagogical approach to use when teaching Physical Education (PE). However, within CLA
research, there is a lack of applied research in practice which critics cite as a potential reason for the approach not being widely used. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the manipulation of task constraints, specifically; the location, shape and number of scoring zones, influences children’s emergent gameplay behaviours during a small-sided invasion game from an ecological dynamic’s perspective.

Methods
Thirty participants were recruited from 3 different co-educational primary schools located in Northern England (height: 145.2 ± 7.6cm, age: 9.8 years ± 0.5, weight: 39.6kg ± 8.67) and played two 10-minute 5v5 constraint-led games of ‘zoneball’. ‘Standard’ zoneball had one goal each and ‘corners’ had 2 goals each positioned on each the corner of the court. Emergent gameplay behaviours were analysed using the Emergent Game-based Assessment Tool and was conducted using a digital video-based tagging software to compare differences between participants emergent gameplay behaviour.

Results
Significant differences (p=<0.05) in emergent gameplay behaviour were found between the ‘standard’ and ‘corners’ game in offensive functionality (underarm and chest passes), offensive spatial temporal interactions (moving into occupied spaces), offensive court positioning (defensive-midfield and attacking-midfield quarter), defensive functionality (successful attempt at block/interception), offensive intentionality (moving multiple times) and co adaptive network awareness (targeted with pass). No significant differences were found in participants offensive support, distribution distance, defensive intentionality and spatial temporal interactions.

Findings
This study demonstrates that the manipulation of the location, number and shape of scoring zones and task constraints, in an invasion game influences children’s emergent gameplay behaviour. Subsequent findings rooted in an ecological dynamic’s perspective give practical insights for coaches and teachers for how they might design their own practice to elicit desirable gameplay behaviour.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Status:	Published
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation Leisure > GV0557 Sports
School/Department:	School of Science, Technology and Health
URI:	https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/11695

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