Tactical Knowledge in Team Sports From a Constructivist and Cognitivist Perspective

Traditionally, teaching team sports has been based on a strategy that puts forward the mastery of motor skills prior to actual involvement in the game, thus emphasizing physical capacities more than an understanding of the game. Supporting a constmctivist and a cognitivist perspective to the teaching—learning process, this paper focuses on tactical knowledge constructed by the students. In order to shed light on the nature of tactical knowledge envisioned for the students, the systemic and therefore dynamic view of team sports is presented. Categories of knowledge are thereafter illustrated, and three main steps that students go through to construct and stabilize their tactical knowledge are identified. Finally, some similarities and differences between the constructivist and cognitivist perspective presented in this paper and the knowledge-based literature on motor expertise are discussed.