Western Professor’s Research Explores How Teaching Styles Shape Student Growth

Can physical education classes help students become more empathetic, inclusive, and effective leaders? That’s the question driving a new international research project led by Western Colorado University’s Dr. Kanae Haneishi.

Backed by a $25,000 research grant from the Spectrum Institute for Teaching and Learning Dr. Haneishi’s work will explore how student-centered physical education practices can foster leadership, empathy, and teamwork among Japanese students while strengthening teacher effectiveness.

“This project is about creating physical education learning space that fosters students’ social and personal growth,” Dr. Haneishi, a Professor of Exercise and Sport Science and K–12 Physical Education, said. “By helping teachers apply more than 11 different Spectrum teaching styles, student-centered approaches, we’re hoping to teach not just physical skills but also develop students’ personal and social skills.”

In addition to Dr. Haneishi, the research involves faculty from Tsukuba University and Nippon Sport Science University in Japan. Over the next year, the team will train both in-service and pre-service physical education teachers to implement the Spectrum of Teaching Styles, a framework that emphasizes choice, discovery, and individualized learning. They’ll then measure how those pedagogies impact students ages seven to 18 across a range of schools in Japan.

Using a mixed-methods approach that includes surveys, interviews, and classroom observations, the team will assess growth in key social and personal domains of learning through the lens of inclusion and social justice and look at on how various Spectrum teaching styles influence physical education teaching and learning.

In September, Dr. Haneishi was also awarded the Institute’s Sara Ashworth Graduate Student Assistantship Scholarship. The award is nearly $80,000 over two years, covering all expenses for one graduate student in the Applied Exercise Science and Performance (AESP) program in the Exercise and Sport Science program at Western Colorado University to conduct research on the Spectrum of Teaching styles and present and publish the research.

The Spectrum Institute for Teaching and Learning is a nonprofit organization focused on improving the quality of teaching and learning around the world.

The findings from Dr. Haneishi’s studies will contribute to the development of more inclusive, equitable, and just physical education practices and improve teacher education programs both in Japan and around the world.

“This is an opportunity to not only make a significant impact on the field of physical education in Japan and around the world,” Dr. Haneishi said, “but also to bring new insights and innovative teaching approaches of inclusion and social justice to our own classrooms here at Western.”