Swimming is a profound source of joy in life. The impact of swimming competence extends beyond leisure, encompassing aquatic skills crucial for the prevention of drowning incidents. The World Health Organization (WHO) strongly advocates for the proactive initiative of teaching basic swimming and water safety skills to school-aged children, which…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between students' individual interest, achievement goals, perceived competence and situational interest, by using a cluster analysis in swimming. Three hundred and eighty-two secondary school students (M[subscript age] = 14.8, SD = 0.9, 52.4% girls, aged 13-17) enrolled in swimming…

Scholars argue that movement content knowledge in physical education teacher education (PETE) needs to be revisited and problematised. In this paper we develop the concept of movement capability representing a widened view of movement content knowledge. If teacher educators want to teach movement capability as an intrinsic educational goal in PETE…

To cope in various aquatic environments (i.e. swimming pools, lakes, rivers, oceans), learners require a wide repertoire of self-regulatory behaviours such as awareness of obstacles and water properties, floating and moving from point to point with different strokes, decision making, emotional control and breathing efficiently. By experiencing…

The aim of this study was to ascertain whether performance in a series of water safety tests, in clothed and swimsuit conditions, were dependent on the swim stroke that beginners selected for traversing maximal distance. A total of 45 children (9.6 ± 1.6 years) involved in a learning programme were asked to complete six tests to: travel their…

Teaching basic swimming, water safety and rescue skills is recommended by the World Health Organization for all school-aged children. However, there is a lack of evidence on effective pedagogies to develop swimming competency and the success of swimming lessons as a drowning prevention intervention. This study used a self-report questionnaire and…

This paper examines the utilisation of light sailing within school sport programmes in Western France and California. Sailing has been identified as a key activity for upper class participation in both France and the USA because it heavily involves intellectual skills, including preparation, tactical decision making, leadership and problem…

The purpose of this study was to describe how African American pre-service physical education teachers engage themselves in learning aquatic content. This study used a case study design in andragogy theory. Seven participants (four males and three females) had very little experience and/or swimming ability prior to enrolling in the basic aquatic…