Abstract (eng)
The Austrian educational system underlies a number of modifications, which also affect the subject „Sportkunde“. These comprise some major changes of the curriculum, in order to improve the quality of the education. The now concrete formulated competences serve the purpose of recording the aims of the lessons. Moreover, the introduction of education-al standards (“Bildungsstandards”), which define the required knowledge at a certain time, enables a systematic monitoring of the students’ learning progress. The reformation should on the one hand lead to more reliability concerning the realization of teaching and learning aims, on the other hand, it should substitute the hitherto dominating focus on mere factual knowledge for the development of competences, which enhances the quality of the education considerably.
While this reformation of the curricula has already been converted within a great number of subjects, the formation of a new curriculum as well as the formulation of concrete com-petences have not taken place within the subject “Sportkunde” yet. Thus, in this paper the central topics of sports psychology that are part of this subject, are being elaborated.
With the help of the elaborations given in this paper students should be equipped with knowledge about the theory of cognition, emotion and motivation as essential parts of sport science and their effects on physical activity. They should develop an understanding of these topics as well as their influences and be enabled to reproduce, apply and judge the theoretical concepts of cognition, emotion and motivation, taught in the context of the subject “Sportkunde”. Gabler, Nitsch & Singer (2000, S. 12) stress the importance of psy-chological aspects in sports. They indicate that physical activity always happens due to certain reasons. On the one hand, they are influenced by experiences, strategies and de-cisions, as well as subjective estimation of the individual movements. On the other hand, they again all react upon the mental state. Baumann (2009, S. 63) writes too that cognitive as well as emotional and motivational factors influence every physical activity.
The theory in this paper was elaborated with the help of hermeneutical research. Herme-neutics means to interpret texts, in order to ensure their understanding (Bräutigam, 2006, S. 220). Furthermore, teaching materials were produced, which are meant to support teachers in the classroom. Moreover, handouts were created to supply the students with and overview of the topics and give them an opportunity to apply their new gained knowledge. The summaries should help them understand and study the content. All this elaborated material for the practical usage in the classroom is meant to support the ad-justment to the new curriculum.