Contemporary Developments in Sport Pedagogy and their Implications for Sport Management Education

Within the context of rapidly changing social conditions in developed societies, traditional approaches to teaching and learning that view learning as a simple process of internalising a fixed body of knowledge have become outdated and ineffective. The traditional emphasis on content, or what we feel our students should learn, has thus become less important than the need to help them learn how to learn and to think critically about both content and process. This paper examines contemporary learning theory and its previous application in the sport coaching and physical education field to suggest how these ideas might be applied to sport management education. It argues that, for teaching and learning to be relevant and effective, the focus must be on learning instead of teaching, on the process of learning rather than its product. Further, it must include relevant experience, and involve participation in the practices of the community of sport management.