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Main Focus on Empirical Teaching and Educational Research

Head: Prof. Dr. Erin Gerlach

Assistant of the Professorship: Christine Görting

“Exercise, play and sport” is a significant phenomenon and a dominant part of the living environment of children and youths. Just as art, literature and music, the sports and movement culture is a valuable good of our society. The differentiations of the sports and movement culture in the last decades lead to the development of justification, explanation and consultation needs in terms of an educational and socio-scientific perspective. In this context, the didactics and educational sciences of sports deals with issues including questions of upbringing, education, socialisation and development support of individuals in educational situations and in informal sectors. The professorship seeks to answer pedagogically relevant issues empirically, and is thus representative of an empirically oriented and interdisciplinary working sport pedagogy and of an empirically researching subject didactic that uses various methods from related disciplines according to the relevance of the issue and is capable of connecting to interdisciplinary empirical educational research.

The research of the professorship covers topics such as the “development of motor basic qualifications (MOBAQ)”, “Self-concept and personality development in and through sports”, questions on “socialisation research and development theories in sports sciences”, aspects of a “Pedagogical psychology of sports” and “commitment to sports in the life course”. In the teaching area, the education and training of future teachers and the teaching of professional competences and capacities determine a significant part of research and teaching within the teacher training department. Additionally, the professorship is involved in other courses of study of the sport and health sciences department.