The SPORT-C Intervention: An Integration of Sports, Case-Based Pedagogy and Systems Thinking Learning

TL;DR

The paper introduces SPORT-C, an innovative framework integrating sports, systems thinking, and case-based pedagogy to enhance motivation among underrepresented racial groups in STEM education.

Contribution

It presents a novel interdisciplinary intervention framework and provides initial evidence of its positive impact on student motivation in STEM classrooms.

Findings

SPORT-C increases student motivation in STEM.

The intervention is feasible for classroom implementation.

Impact varies by racial identity.

Abstract

The STEM field is unrepresentative of the population it serves. Due to a lack of cultural relevance in STEM courses, there is a dissociation between the lived experience of students from underrepresented racial groups (URG) and STEM course material. The SPORT-C intervention is a framework that combines sports, systems thinking learning, and a case-based pedagogy into an activity that can be used in any STEM course. A pilot study was conducted to determine the viability of the SPORT-C intervention in a classroom setting and determine if it was worth further investigating and if any impact differed by racial identity. The findings from this study implicate that the SPORT-C intervention has an impact on the motivation levels of students to participate in STEM courses.