How Do Specialist Teachers Practice Safety Lessons Exploring the Aspects of Physical Education Safety Lessons in Elementary Schools

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary PE specialist teachers' assessments of safety risk factors in PE class, risk management, and difficulties in risk management. Five elementary PE specialist teachers who had at least five years of teaching experience participated in this study. Data were collected from non-participant class observations, in-depth interviews, and documents. Data were analyzed through the inductive categorical analysis. The results of this study are as follows: First, PE specialist teachers perceived that safe PE classes can be achieved by dealing with risks embedded within PE classes such as subject-innate, facility, environmental, and managerial components. Second, PE specialist teachers implemented safety classes by: (a) intentional class activities with detailed lesson plans, (b) reconstructing curriculum, and (c) making safety as a habit not as information acquisition. Third, participants had difficulty in teaching safety in PE classes due to: (a) outcome-oriented safety-first policy, (b) breach of safety codes between teacher and administrator, (c) limited contact with students, and (d) different level of sensitivity to safety issues. The findings suggest that teaching safety in PE classes are complex pedagogical activities that goes beyond teaching CPR or first aids and teacher education program should conceptualize safety issues from a pedagogical perspective.

Risk and Safety Management in Physical Education: A Study of Teachers' Practice Perspectives

“…However, risk practices are embedded within institutional and cultural environments (Douglas, 1992;Lupton, 2013). In Park's (2018) Korean study, specialist PE teachers report that they are hesitant to teach physical activities that are accident-prone due to safety policies. Among the interviewees in this study, policy is not given as a primary reason for exclusion of physical activities, but it more so relates to safety concerns such as in Canada (Young, 2007).…”

“…As feelings and affect may guide actors' risk decisions (Lupton, 2013), emotions, intuition, and trust might be just as reasonable in dealing with risk and uncertainty in some respects (Zinn, 2016). Teachers' concerns in PE might generate common RSM practices; for example, the fear of adverse consequences, students' safety (Young, 2007), or liability (Park, 2018) might lead to riskaverse teaching practices in PE. However, in-between and nonrational strategies are often used in combination (Zinn, 2016) and might be crucial for teachers in balancing their RSM practice.…”

“…In the UK, for example, former school safety policies and teachers' fear of liability restricted children's development; educators were therefore given an updated mandate to balance educational risk through risk-benefit assessments and the use of common sense (HM Government, 2010). However, there seems to be a paucity of empirical studies that have investigated how teachers practice RSM in PE programs and, in particular, from the perspective of teachers (Park, 2018). Some related empirical studies investigate how teachers practice RSM in selected sports such as floor hockey (Gray, 1992) or why teachers are hesitant to teach gymnastics (Robinson et al, 2020) while others seem oriented toward teachers' liability concerns in practice (Young, 2007;Rothe, 2009).…”

“…In Norwegian PE, the language in a regulative orientation on how to teach water activities in schools might give an impression of being compulsory and therefore restrict PE teachers' RSM practices to the use of recommendations (Porsanger, 2020). Again, Korean primary school PE teachers' fear of litigation might induce them to exclude certain activities from PE (Park, 2018). However, the primary reason for risk aversion in a Canadian study was reported to be concerns for students' safety and not necessarily litigation (Young, 2007).…”

The reconstruction of physical education teachers: A critical discourse analysis of regulative texts

“…Looking internationally, some claim that teachers in the UK fear bringing students on excursions (Rothstein, 2006), while others claim that this fear is exaggerated (Health and Safety Executive, 2011). In Korea, some PE teachers have developed a safety-first policy; they are hesitant to teach activities that entail risk of harm, as liability has become their primary concern (Park, 2018). In Canada, excluding certain activities from the PE program seems to be a legitimate strategy among teachers to avoid risk and injuries (Young, 2007).…”