A qualitative-quantitative method to describe the learning strategies of students in physical education and sports

The aim of this article is to examine ways to describe various learning strategies used by students in physical education and sports. The subjects included twenty-three students aged 14 and 15 who were filmed while participating in a teacher directed task. Following this they participated in an interview to explain their behaviour. Behavioural and verbal data collected were subjected to a content analysis. Categorizing the results allowed the authors to formulate six learning strategies: listening to directions, thinking and understanding, observing/imitating, visualizing/imaging, focusing one's attention, repeating. An analysis of discrimination confirmed these categories of learning strategies. This study demonstrates how categories of variables obtained from a qualitative analysis can be examined objectively through a statistical analysis.