Influence of British National Curriculum Physical Education on Teachers' Behaviours Associated with Pupils' Psychosocial Development: A Case Study in One English Town

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of British National Curriculum Physical Education on the quality of physical education instruction in the five state secondary schools in one southwestern English town in terms of teachers' use of behaviours related with pupils' psychosocial development during the 1994 summer term. Subjects were the 20 physical education teachers employed at the five schools. Two lessons of each teacher's choice in which they taught any activity to pupils in Years 7, 8, and 9 were videotaped. Lessons were coded with the Coaching Behavior Assessment System, an observational instrument designed to record the rate at which teachers use behaviours positively and negatively related with pupils' psychosocial development. Data generated by this system were entered into an SPSS programme to produce descriptive statistics. Regardless of the activity being taught, teachers used behaviours related to pupils' positive psychosocial development much more frequently than they used behaviours linked with pupils' negative psychosocial development. A comparison of the data collected at these five schools during the present study with those collected in the summer term of 1992 indicated that the introduction of the National Curriculum Physical Education did not affect teachers' use of behaviours associated with pupils' psychosocial development when teaching summer activities.