A Differentiated Field of Affordances: Redefining Perceptual Skill in Physical Education Teachers

Quality physical education (PE) promotes physical activity and, consequently, children’s health and wellbeing. The provision of quality PE depends largely on the interactions between PE teachers and students. PE teachers use observation to guide these interactions and, therefore, require perceptual skill. Perceptual skill in PE teachers is traditionally viewed as the accurate perception of students’ movement errors—deviations from a normative movement pattern. However, this view has three major limitations: motor learning is more about movement function than form, PE is about more than motor learning, and perception is more about the environment’s functions—its possibilities for action, or affordances—than its forms. We present a novel, ecological approach in which perceptual skill in PE teachers is instead considered in terms of the field of teaching affordances—the dynamic set of possibilities for teaching students within a situation. Perceptual skill, we argue, is a PE teacher’s tendency to perceive a more differentiated field of affordances: a broader range of affordances, extending further into the future, with greater variation in their relevance. Compared with accurate perception of movement errors, this tendency better aids a PE teacher in interacting with students, navigating towards their educational goals, and, ultimately, providing quality PE.