Institute of Sport and Movement Sciences (ISBW)

The Institute of Sports and Movement Sciences (ISBW) focuses on promoting childhood and adolescent development in and through exercise, play and sports in various settings.

Its research cluster on social science in sports (Professor Ulf Gebken) works on externally funded projects such as the following: ‘Kicking Girls’, a study into social integration of girls through football (2009–2020, funded by the Laureus Foundation); a project on linguistic awareness in school sports with refugee children (2016–2020); a project on preventing violence in men’s football (2018–2020, funded by the City of Essen); ‘Open Sunday and Open Area’, a project on freely accessible weekend exercise and sports offers for children and adolescents (2015–2019, funded by the RAG Foundation, Anneliese Brost Foundation et al.). The cluster also participates in the ProViel project ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ (2016–2019, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research). Further, the ‘KommSport’ project (2014–2019, funded by the Ministry of Children, Family Affairs, Refugees and Integration of North Rhine-Westphalia) seeks to offer children and adolescents community sports programmes tailored to their particular needs, ideally in a club context.

The division of movement and training sciences/biomechanics of sports under Professor Mühlbauer has launched two projects. Firstly, it has acquired a fellowship for digital teaching innovation in higher education (2020–2021, jointly funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft), which has allowed it to incorporate collaborative and interactive digital technologies into sports classes taught as part of the relevant bachelor’s teacher training programmes. Secondly, it has collaborated with TU Berlin and Heidelberg University in developing, implementing and testing preventive exercise programmes (PROfit) for residents of stationary care facilities (2019–2022, funded by Techniker Krankenkasse Hamburg).

The cluster on sports pedagogy and didactics under Professor Michael Pfitzner has been conducting a joint project with Professor Petra Scherer (didactics of mathematics) within the scope of the research training group ‘Querschnittliche Fragen der Lehrer*innenbildung zur Bewegungsbasierten Lernförderung im Mathematikunterricht’ (‘a cross-section of issues in teacher training on movement-based ways of promoting learning in mathematics classes’). The project focuses on stimulating executive function. Further, the phase II of the BMBF-funded ‘ProViel’ project, which focuses on teacher training in the context of diversity, began in July 2019. The current phase will be centred around a sub-project on inclusion in sports. The project ‘Im Team Studieren’ (’studying as a team’), which sought to develop ways of implementing and evaluating a system for using (online) tools in collaborative student work, has finished. It was a part of the UDE funding line ‘Lehr-Lern-Innovationen’. The results of the ’saViS’ project, a study into the suitability of students as supply teachers in physical education conducted in partnership with the association of sports science faculties (Fakultätentag Sportwissenschaft) and other disciplines of UDE, are currently being evaluated.