Influence of the National Curriculum for Physical Education on Inner-City Teachers' Behaviours Associated with Pupils' Psychosocial Development

Abstract

This study examined the quality of instruction provided by a sample of teachers working in a depressed urban setting and within the confines of the National Curriculum for Physical Education in terms of use of behaviours related to pupils' psychosocial development. Subjects were 18 specialist physical education teachers working in seven mixed-sex secondary schools in one large city in southeastern England. Two lessons of each teacher's choice, in which they taught any activity to pupils in Years 7, 8, or 9, were videotaped during the summer term of 1996. Lessons were coded with the Coaching Behavior Assessment System, an observational procedure designed to record the rate at which teachers use behaviours positively and negatively associated with pupils' psychosocial development. Descriptive statistics indicated that teachers used behaviours linked with pupils' positive psychosocial development much more frequently than they used behaviours associated with pupils' negative psychosocial development. A comparison of the data collected at these seven urban schools with those collected previously in a rural setting (Curtner-Smith, Kerr, & Hencken, 1995) suggested that, in general, British physical education teachers' behaviours are similar across the locations.

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“…The work of Curtner- Smith and Hasty (1997) was extended by Curtner- Smith et al (2001). Results concluded that teachers were still working in a very similar way though one difference was that teachers in the second study used practice style significantly more than the first group and managed their classes significantly less.…”

“…According to Goldberger and Howarth (1992) the Spectrum of Teaching Styles and the National Curriculum are key elements in the teaching and learning process. The only studies to date which looked specifically at the influence of the National Curriculum on teaching styles were the work of Curtner- Smith and Hasty (1997) and Curtner-Smith et al (2001). Curtner- Smith and Hasty's (1997) research investigated whether the initial introduction and implementation of the NCPE (1992) led to teachers expanding their range of teaching styles.…”

“…The only studies to date which looked specifically at the influence of the National Curriculum on teaching styles were the work of Curtner- Smith and Hasty (1997) and Curtner-Smith et al (2001). Curtner- Smith and Hasty's (1997) research investigated whether the initial introduction and implementation of the NCPE (1992) led to teachers expanding their range of teaching styles. Results indicated that the percentage of lesson time in which teachers employed each of the teaching styles did not differ significantly in the pre and post NCPE (1992).…”

“…The majority of time was spent using reproductive teaching styles. Curtner- Smith and Hasty's (1997) work suggested that teachers were not employing the teaching styles which may improve pupils' planning and evaluation skills deemed necessary to meet the requirements of the NCPE (Goldberger and Howarth 1992). Curtner- Smith and Hasty (1997) suggested their findings were due to a number of factors including teachers not being trained to use a variety of teaching styles and the lack of time to experiment with teaching styles.…”