The Development of Fair Play in Physical Education and School Sports: A Systematic Review

Abstract

In today's society, values are already an important part of any social and educational project. Physical activity and sport are excellent instruments to promote the conveyance of values resulting in personal and social development. However, an increasing number of authors state that the mere practice of physical activity in itself does not develop morality. The aims of this study were: 1) to conduct a systematic review of the effects of those research studies related to fair play where intervention programmes were implemented; 2) to describe and review these interventions. For this purpose, a systematic search was undertaken, in accordance with the PRISMA Declaration guidelines, in the Web of Science, Scopus, and SportDiscus databases. A total of 13 studies which met the inclusion criteria were selected. The results showed that the Sport Education Model, with the implementation of a fair play system, obtained a statistically significant increase in the level of respect for social conventions, respect for rules and referees, full commitment, and respect for opponents. On the other hand, the application of the Personal and Social Responsibility model led to improvements in fair play, rough play and the importance of winning. The main practical application of this systematic review is to help teachers and coaches in the development of fair play, as well as to identify those methodologies which provide the best results for the development of fair play in students and athletes during the sports training stage.