Collaborative Learning with Application of Screen-based Technology in Physical Education

Collaborative learning has been shown to be a useful tool for improving several social skills in students; however, it is very diffi cult to set up the initial conditions that guarantee its eff ectiveness. Since group projects are made for students and, most importantly, by students, we should not forget to take their opinions based on previous experience into consideration, which might increase the effi ciency of their own learning. Th erefore, the aim of the study was to investigate what secondary school students learn from and think about group projects in Physical Education. A total of 94 secondary school students (46 girls and 48 boys) participated in the study carried out in the 2015/2016 school year. Th e participants were given the assignment to create a video exercise, which they were working on in small groups in PE. A questionnaire was designed to investigate students’ learning outcomes, participation, evaluation, and attitudes towards the project. Diff erences for selected categorical variables were determined using the Chi-square test. Th e majority of the students reported improvement in selected social skills and better relationships with their teammates. In addition, several signifi cant diff erences in students’ opinions with respect to age and gender were found.


Introduction
Nowadays, employers suggest that schools at all levels need to do more to better prepare students to work in team-based environments.Life skills/social skills have become equally important to the "technical skills" that are still very oft en prioritized at schools in many countries.Riebe, Girardi, and Whitsed (2016) underline that being able to work eff ectively and productively with others in teams is essential in the 21 st -century employment market.Th e importance of teamwork capability is repeatedly highlighted in reports from western and other economies.Th e authors emphasise that teamwork capability can be developed, supported, and improved through eff ective teamwork pedagogy in which collaborative, cooperative, or experiential learning strategies are necessary.
Collaborative learning creates an environment where students at various performance levels work together in small groups towards a common goal, which encourages their active participation.Th e students are responsible for one another's learning as well as their own.Th us, the success of one student helps other students to be successful (Gokhale, 1995).Shared learning gives students an opportunity to engage in discussion, take responsibility for their own learning, and thus become critical thinkers (Totten, Sills, Digby & Russ, 1991).Group work can be used to encourage deeper learning and promote students' autonomy by transferring some of the responsibility for teaching and learning to them (Hughes & Large, 1993;Somervell, 1993).
To make the collaborative learning successful, it is necessary to monitor and regulate the interactions.Th erefore, the teacher retains an important role in the success of collaborative learning as a facilitator.His role is not to provide the right answer to the students or to say which group members are right, but to facilitate and redirect the group work in a productive direction with minimal pedagogical intervention (Dillenbourg, 1999).In a collaborative classroom, the teacher encourages students' use of their own knowledge, ensures that students share their knowledge, expertise and their learning strategies, treat each other respectfully, and focus on high levels of understanding (Bonwell & Eison, 1991).
Another certain way to increase the probability that some types of interaction occur is to carefully design the situation.Th e most frequent questions that teachers ask themselves are: What is the optimal group size?Should I select group members with respect to some criteria or let them form groups by themselves?Boys and girls together or rather separately?Which tasks are suitable for collaborative processes?Th ese and other questions have inspired empirical research on collaborative learning.However, beyond a few main results, it appears that these conditions interact with each other in a complex way (Dillenbourg, 1995).
Because of these multiple interactions, it is very diffi cult to set up initial conditions that guarantee the eff ectiveness of collaborative learning.Since group projects are made for students and, most importantly, by students, we should not forget to take their opinions based on previous experience into consideration, which might increase the effi ciency of their own learning.
Moreover, this paper is also supported by Fullan's (2013) arguments about technology having the potential to accelerate learning.Th e seemingly unstoppable growth in youth's engagement with digital technologies in their personal lives means that digital technologies are socially relevant (Casey, Goodyear & Armour, 2017).Th is is also a growing opportunity to act as a medium through which to engage young people in immediate, attractive and increasingly personalized ways (Greenhow & Lewin, 2016;Selwyn & Stirling, 2016).Applying new technologies in teaching PE and at school settings is considered to be a possible means of teachinglearning process effi ciency and of forming the children' relationship with physical activities, and therefore their performance both in and out of PE (Arnett & Lutz 2003;Štemberger, Knjaz & Tománek, 2011;McKenzie et al., 2013;Cardon et al. 2012;Lee, Burgeson, Fulton & Spain, 2006;Bendíková & Pavlovič, 2013).
Th erefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate what secondary school students learn from and think about the group project with the application of new technologies in Physical Education.

Methods
Th is study reports on a pedagogical experiment that was carried out in the 2015/2016 school year on a sample of 94 Middle Years Programme students (46 girls and 48 boys) of United School Novohradska located in Bratislava, Slovakia.Basic characteristics of the sample are presented in Table 1 below.Th e participants were given a group assignment, which they were working on for nine weeks in Physical Education, once a week.Th e students were split into the coeducational groups of four to fi ve members by their PE teachers.Th e aim of the assignment was to create a video-exercise, called the "Brain Break", respecting several criteria such as a time limitation (3-5 minutes), a space limitation (classroom settings), a theme limitation (sports, dance, fi tness, adapted, cultural), etc.Every team member played a specifi c role in the project.One was responsible for choreography, others for music, camera, video editing, and the performance.Before the project started, the students had watched some Brain Breaks made by HOPSports© online to get a better idea of and inspiration for the assignment.
A questionnaire was designed to investigate students' learning outcomes, participation, evaluation, and attitudes towards the project.Th e questionnaire was anonymous for the students, and it consisted of 22 closed questions plus an open question to which the students could comment on the project.Possible answers were arranged across four-item scale: (1) strongly agree, (2) agree, (3) disagree and (4) strongly disagree.Given responses were binarized when answers "strongly agree" and "agree" represented the positive opinion "Yes" and "disagree" and "strongly disagree" represented the negative opinion "No".
All the analyses were processed using SPSS Statistics, v. 17.First, we determined the number of answered questions using percentages (%).Diff erences for selected categorical variables (age and gender) were determined using Chi-square test (χ 2 ).Statistical signifi cance was set up at p<0.05.Students' answers to the open question were analysed qualitatively.
Th is study was approved in advance by the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports at Comenius University, as well as by the United School Novohradska/Gymnasium of Juraj Hronec, where the experiment was conducted.Each participant voluntarily provided written informed consent before participating.

Results
Among all the students, the prevalence of the students reporting knowledge acquired about composition was 56%.In round fi gures, 40% of them reported knowledge gained about the music as well as about video editing.
Only 33% of all the students reported knowledge gained about physical activity.Signifi cantly, there was no statistical diff erence between the self-reported acquired knowledge of boys and girls as well as between the students of diff erent age (Table 2 and 3).
Similarly, no statistical diff erences in self-reported teamwork, managerial and creativity skills were found among diff erently aged students when the majority of all students reported improvement in aforementioned skills.However, a lower number of MYP 2 students reported improvement in communication and rhythmic skills compared to the rest of the students (p<0.01).Additionally, only 36.4% of MYP 2 students reported improvement of relationships with their teammates, which is a signifi cantly lower number in comparison with all the other students (p<0.05),(Table 2).In contrast, no signifi cant diff erences in self-reported improved skills were found between the boys and the girls (Table 3).
In Tables 4 and 5 below, students' attitudes towards the assignment are presented with respect to age and gender.When analysing students' attitudes towards the assignment, the only question for which no statistical diff erence between the students of diff erent age or gender was found, is "I can fi nd a certain value in doing this kind of project"; 62% of the students agreed with this statement.Although 67.9% of all the students reported that the assignment was clear and instructions were easy to understand, 59.1% of MYP 2 students maintained the contrary (p<0.01).
A strong majority (84.3%) of the students reported that they were not looking forward to presenting the video exercise to their classmates and the teacher.However, with respect to gender, more girls showed negative attitudes than the boys did (p<0.01).
In contrast, major variances in the attitudes among the students (50:50) were found in two questions: (1) "In PE we should only exercise and not do projects like this although they include physical activity", and ( 2) "I enjoyed working on the project".In both cases, more boys agreed with the statements than the girls did (p<0.05).
Students' opinions about the evaluation of and participation in the assignment are presented in Tables 6  and 7. Regarding an evaluation of the project, about 60% of all the students reported that knowledge and understanding as well as refl ecting on and improving performance can be assessed through the project.Over 82% of the students reported that planning for performance and applying and performing can be assessed.However, a very low number of MYP 2 students think that knowledge and understanding can be evaluated through the project in comparison to the students of other ages (p<0.01).Most importantly, 51.7% of the students regardless the age and gender reported that a group should be assessed as a whole; in other words, every group member should get the same grade.More boys and younger students agreed with the statement than the girls (p<0.05) and the older students did (p<0.01).With regard to participation in the project, the majority of the students think that one's participation depends on his/her attitude towards the project (83.3%) as well as his/her role in it (71.1%).In addition, almost one half of the students reported that every group member equally participated in doing the project, but fewer girls than the boys did (p<0.01).

Discussion
Th e aim of the present study was to investigate what secondary school students learn from and think about the group project with the application of screen-based technology in Physical Education.Riebe et al. (2016) found that interest in teaching teamwork in higher education courses was more prolifi c in the most recent decade (n = 45; 2005 through 2015) than in the previous one (n = 12; 1995 through 2004), which might be caused by current market demand.Authors' fi ndings regarding the research methods employed across journal articles show that quantitative methods remain a popular approach when investigating the effi cacy of teamwork pedagogies.Furthermore, some articles (26%) were categorized as conceptual, describing pedagogical interventions or tools for teaching teamwork skills, but not empirically examining such strategies.Samples reported in the journal articles are considered to be small, with 26% reporting sample sizes smaller than 100 individuals, which is also, regrettably, the case of this study.We agree with the authors that future research using longitudinal designs with larger samples would contribute to evidence-based knowledge about the implications of teamwork pedagogy in education.Researchers contend that training higher education students in teamwork can lead to higher academic achievement (Rapp & Mathieu, 2007).Similarly, results of the present study show that secondary school students acquired some knowledge about composition, music, physical activity, and video editing.In addition, they improved their teamwork, managerial and creativity skills.
About half of the students think that they should only exercise in PE and not do group projects although they include physical activity.In contrast, a similar number of students think that projects are a meaningful part of education in PE; moreover, over 50% of them can fi nd a certain value in this kind of group activity in Physical Education, regardless of their age and gender.Th e following students' statements support mentioned fi ndings: "Th e BrainBreak was a great project even though I personally think that PE projects are a bit ridiculous" (boy, 12 years old)."... students in diff erent schools usually don't do projects... " (girl, 15 years old)."Such projects do not belong in PE" (boy, 14 years old)."I found this project interesting however I'm not sure if I want to do it again" (boy, 15 years old).
Half of the students enjoyed working on the project, but almost nobody looked forward to presenting the video-exercise to their classmates, which is supported by these comments: "...this type of project has its pluses and minuses.I enjoyed doing this project but I didn't like the part where we had to show it to the other people" (girl, 14 years old) or "... a project is OK but a video is embarrassing" (girl, 13 years old).
Most of the students' negative expressions concerned evaluation that is strongly connected to the group selection and students' participation in the assignment.In particular, 13-to 14-year old girls had grievances about group evaluation.Two very strong comments are presented below.
... we didn't get to choose the groups which made it very diffi cult.No matter how much you think we should improve our cooperation it just made it worse.When 90% of the group wants to work and we can't get the rest to work, we end up doing everything last minute because of them, and we got a bad grade which could ruin my whole grade, but we still have to be graded as a group.Now think -how is this fair?"(girl, 14 years old).
"Our group was awful and full of lazy people that just want to take the credit for the work of others.How is giving us the same grade fair?! Th e group was awful, because we couldn't choose it ourselves.Th e boys never want to work and pull down the entire group.Why should we suff er because of their incapability of doing a project?... " (girl, 14 years old).
Working in a group is a skill that needs to be learnt and might be improved consequently.Th e reviewed journal articles by Riebe et al. (2016) indicate that educators oft en place students in teams with little or no instruction on how to work in teams prior to assigning complex team projects (e.g., Hansen, 2006;Raff erty, 2012;Sashittal, Jassawalla & Markulis, 2011).We suggest that students must be repeatedly exposed to collaborative/cooperative learning environments to improve their social skills, such as teamwork skills, cooperation, communication, confl ict resolution, etc.In this study, a 13-year old boy made a comment that "Th e instructions were understandable but we didn't know what you expected from us.It was the fi rst time -now we learned" (boy, 13 years old).Similarly, another boy (13 years old) wrote: "It was the fi rst time, so the grades didn't turn out well because we weren't 100 % sure what the teachers wanted to see.Next time they'll be better... ".
Many motivational theories highlight the infl uence social environments have on pupils' motivation.In addition, teachers can support pupils' need for relatedness that is concerned with being connected to others through feelings of belonging and being valued by interactive group activities like the case of PE teacher Dylan Blain who applied such activities with application of the new technologies in teaching basketball to a class of boys aged 13-14 (Casey et al., 2017).
According to Riebe et al. (2016), some educators are challenged by the transition from teacher-centred to collaborative/cooperative teaching methods, which constitutes a signifi cant psychological constraint when it comes to adopting collaborative instructional strategies.Many articles (e.g.Gilson, Maynard & Bergiel, 2013;Kirby, 2011;Snyder, 2010) reported that for some educators it is not always clear how they should teach teamwork skills; therefore, educators may be inadequately prepared to take on the task (Tombaugh & Mayfi eld, 2014).Th is has an impact on both educators and students.Many educators are discipline-based scholars and, because of this, they may not have had any formal training in teaching methods or be familiar with resources or collaborative approaches to develop students' teamwork skills (e.g.Hansen, 2006;Kliegl & Weaver, 2013;Sashittal et al., 2011).Similarly, the literature suggests that while some teachers are enthusiastic technology adopters, others are more resistant, perhaps feeling they lack organizational and administrative support or expertise to integrate it (Fullan, 2013).
To conclude, it is crucial to train future teachers in physical education teacher education programs how to teach teamwork skills as much as they do motor skills as well as how to integrate new technologies into Physical Education classes.
technologies in Physical and Sport Education and their eff ects on an aff ective and a cognitive development of a secondary school pupil".

TABLE 1
Characteristics of the study sample COLLABORATIVE LEARNING IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION | G. LUPTÁKOVÁ & B. ANTALA

TABLE 2
Students' self-reported acquired knowledge and improved skills with respect to age

TABLE 3
Students' self-reported acquired knowledge and improved skills with respect to gender

Through making a video exercise I learnt about:
signifi cantly lower number of MYP 2 students as well as of the girls think that this kind of group activity is interesting (p<0.05) and that it is a meaningful part of education in PE (p<0.01), in comparison to other age groups and the boys. A

TABLE 4
Students' attitudes towards the assignment with respect to age

TABLE 5
Students' attitudes towards the assignment with respect to gender

TABLE 6
Students' opinions about the evaluation of and participation in the assignment with respect to age

TABLE 7
Students' opinions about the evaluation of and participation in the assignment with respect to gender