Enriching organisational design for games: the case of badminton in physical education

Purpose: Providing students with enjoyable experiences in Physical Education (PE) is considered a key variable in research on increasing Physical Activity (PA) levels. Designing game formats in PE is relevant to achieving this aim. Coupling principles of Motor Praxeology (MP) and the Constraints Led Approach (CLA) to design three games, the aim of this study was to examine how participants’ sex, age and skill levels (organismic constraints) interacted with varied manipulations of task and environmental constraints in the organisational design of badminton games to increase their enjoyment and PA. Method: Participants were students (n = 55, Mage = 14.0, SD = 2.41, 41.8% girls, aged 11–19) enrolled in a PE unit with three distinct badminton organisational designs for games: Individual Tournament (IT), Team Score (TS) and Personal Challenge (PC). IT challenges students in a group of a homogeneous skill level with a one-on-one competition. TS consists of a series of one-on-one games amongst a group of students with a heterogeneous skill level. PC is a competition between students in a heterogenous-level group, adopting a handicap score system. Enjoyment and level of PA was measured using a pleasure scale and accelerometers. Results: Results indicated little effect of organisational design on pupils’ enjoyment but showed a difference in their PA: younger and skilled boys moved less in the PC design compared to the TS organisational design. Discussion/conclusion: Our results suggest that potential interactions between the format of the organisational design and individual differences in students could be relevant for increasing PA in PE programmes. In exploring the effects of interactions of organisational designs for games, goal tasks and students’ characteristics, a combination of MP and CLA frameworks helps to address some of the prevailing beliefs about pleasure and the commitment made by students in common physical education play and activity formats. Our study showed that there is no ideal organisational design for engaging students, but that the most fruitful formats depend on the specific interests of the students. Practical implications: These theoretical frameworks invite PE teachers to develop organisational designs by providing interaction between goal-oriented tasks and social variables (e.g. relationships between players) to provoke richer experiences in all students from different skill levels.