Trials for Maximisation of Learning Outcomes in Judo Courses in a Physical Education Teacher Training Curriculum during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In the physical education (P.E.) teacher training curriculum, it is necessary to teach students who want to become P.E. teachers the basic skills for safely instructing junior high school students in techniques in judo. However, there is a relatively high risk of infection in judo courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. The previous study tried to ensure learning outcomes by adopting the buddy system as a prevention measure against COVID-19, and reported that outcomes of the skill learning programme were not sufficient due to the implementation of trial lessons and so on. In the university where the first author of this report works as a teaching assistant for judo courses, the courses were planned to include the implementation of trial lessons in the spring semester of 2022. In this study, we made use of the learning outcomes of the course “Pedagogy of P.E.” to improve the implementation of trial lessons, and made students 1) take prevention measures against COVID-19, and 2) evaluate other students’ skills by observing their skills during trial lessons. Also, we made students 3) work on movement observation and evaluation tasks using video of trial lessons in the last lesson of the judo course. As a result, the students developed awareness of their responsibility to avoid exposing their students in trial lessons to the risk of infection with COVID-19, and skill learning was improved compared to the judo course reported in the previous study. The results of evaluation of skills by students in judo courses showed high interpersonal agreement and typical learning obstacle such as “students cannot observe the skill of receiver and the skill of taker at the same time.” From these results, it is suggested that making use of the learning outcomes of the course “Pedagogy of P.E.” when implementing skill evaluation in trial lessons during a judo course may enhance the learning of movement skills, including observational learning of such skills.