A didactic analysis of tactical transfer during the Tactical Games Approach

The Tactical Games Approach (TGA) is a games-based instructional model designed to teach students the underlying principles of games so that students really understand game structure and tactics. A foundational principle that underlies the TGA is that games have common tactical problems and concepts. Almond (1986) proposed that these common structures allow for the classification of games, and more importantly, provide a structure for students to understand common attributes among games that could carry across similarly classified games. The premise of this concept is that students can transfer knowledge and performance in one game form to another and thus become more knowledgeable games players. Despite this supposition there remains a dearth of literature that has provided empirical evidence to validate the claims that TGA can facilitate student tactical transfer across games within the same classification. Using net games, Mitchell and Oslin (1999) showed that there was significant improvement in students' decision-making from one net game unit to another (badminton to pickleball) using the TGA. Although providing much needed impetus for the generation of empirical data the study design and evaluation instruments utilized within this study provided insufficient information to separate tactical decision-making from skill execution within net games. Mitchell and Oslin (1999) recommended that future research should examine tactical transfer in invasion games where off-the-ball movements are a large component of effective game play and do not require coordinated controlled projection of a ball or object. The purpose of this study was to provide a didactic analysis of the evolution and transfer of invasion game offensive skills and tactics of five elementary students participating in two TGA units. The didactic protocol included collecting data regarding teacher intentions Data analysis consisted of identification of Critical Didactic Incidents (CDIs) and search for configurations in the data across episodes. Results revealed the TGA to be an effective model in facilitating student learning of offensive on-the-ball and off-the-ball invasion game tactics. Student learning primarily occurred as a function of aligned teacher intent and elaboration and the frequency of aligned feedback that occurred within both practice and game tasks. Off-the-ball straight line cutting actions primarily transferred across units because of the similarity of fundamental skills required to perform an appropriate cut across the two TGA units. Passing decision making and quality of pass exhibited some transfer towards the end of the ultimate frisbee unit, but was limited by the decrease in teacher interventions and feedback and resultant student modifications of the tasks. The contextual variance in the dimensions of the skill themes and object trajectory in ultimate frisbee also limited transfer in all three offensive game performance variables analyzed.