Teaching Games for Understanding: Its Contribution to the Knowledge of Skill Acquisition from a Motor Learning Perspective

The Teaching Games for Understanding (TGFU) approach has received, considerable support in the pedagogical literature and has been warmly accepted by physical educators. Observation of the motor learning literature, however, shows that it has made little impact on motor learning theorists and researchers. This paper examines the research literature in TGFU and questions its contribution to our understanding of learning in games. It is concluded that the TGFU research has provided the motor learning theorists with very little that is new. There is insufficient evidence to support the TGFU apologists claim that it is superior to other methods in teaching decision making in games. The research, however, has shown that investigations into motor learning can move away from classical laboratory studies to more ecologically valid field based experiments. Furthermore, evidence of implicit learning of techniques and decision making has been shown.