Physical education teacher education students' knowledge, perceptions and experiences of promoting healthy, active lifestyles in secondary schools

Abstract

This item was submitted to Loughborough's Institutional Repository (https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/) by the author and is made available under the following Creative Commons Licence conditions.For the full text of this licence, please go to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ 1 Physical education teacher education students' knowledge, perceptions and experiences of promoting healthy, active lifestyles in secondary schools Jo HarrisLoughborough University, Loughborough, UK j.p.harris@lboro.ac.uk 2 Background: Physical education teacher education (PETE) offers a context for students to learn about the promotion of active lifestyles in secondary schools through their interactions and experiences during the teacher education process. However, previous studies have found low levels of healthrelated fitness knowledge amongst physical education teacher education (PETE) students which is a concern given that there are high expectations of PE to promote healthy, active lifestyles. In addition, international literature reveals a number of problematic issues associated with health-related teaching, learning and professional development in PE. Exploration of health-related experiences within the PETE process and consideration of the extent to which they address these previously identified issues was considered worthy of study because of PETE"s potential to influence the health-related teaching of the students and to ultimately impact on the health-related knowledge and behaviour of the pupils they go on to teach.Purpose: To explore PETE students" health-related physical education (HRPE) knowledge, perceptions and experiences during a PETE programme.Participants and setting: Purposive selection of physical education (PE) students on a one year postgraduate secondary PETE programme at one University in England, working in partnership with up to sixty schools.Research design: Case study.Data collection: A qualitative approach founded on the interpretive paradigm was used, utilising a questionnaire completed by 124 PETE students. Data analysis:Responses to the open-ended questions were analysed by means of the generation of themes using constructivist grounded theory methods.Findings: At the outset of their programme, PETE students" knowledge of how active children should be was limited and confused. Their initial perceptions of the learning associated with promoting healthy, active lifestyles in PE were at variance with what they experienced in schools during their training. These experiences were diverse, the most common structure being discrete units of study with no health-related learning evident within the rest of the PE programme. The focus of the HRPE learning was predominantly physiological with minimal attention to physical activity recommendations or monitoring. Most students experienced school-based HRPE programmes which 3 they considered not particularly effective in promoting healthy, active lifestyles amongst young people.Conclusion: It would seem that PETE is not adequately preparing future PE teacher...

Signature pedagogies in support of teachers’ professional learning

“…Self-study methodology allows us to look at key pedagogies that might support important teacher education outcomes such as teaching diverse learners and teaching for social justice. Two examples where the pedagogies of a teacher education programme have been the focus include a study by Harris (2014) who looked at how best to develop teacher education students' knowledge, perceptions, and experiences of promoting healthy, active lifestyles in secondary schools. A Finnish study looked at the effectiveness of their teacher education programme pedagogies in teaching for socio-emotional learning (Klemola, Heikinaro-Johansson, and O'Sullivan 2013).…”

Untitled

“…One of problems of school physical education is optimizing of children's and adolescents' motor functioning for improvement of their health and workability (Baltsevych V.K., 2000;Krutsevych T.Yu., Bezverkhnya G.V., 2010;Vink K. et al, 2015;Yermakova T.S., 2015). The problem of motor functioning and health strengthening is important both for Ukraine and for European countries (Cieślicka M., Napierała M., 2009;Iermakov S.S. et al, 2011;Cieslicka Miroslawa, Slowinski Mariusz, 2012;Paczuski R., Cieślicka M., 2013;Coskun Ali, Sahin Gulsah, 2014;Piccinno Andrea, Colella Dario, 2014;Harris J., 2014).…”

Influence of physical activity on students’ life quality

“…However, as on to day physical activity has not become a demand of students. Analysis of works, devoted to formation of students' physical activity [6,7,26] shows that most of recommendations of scientists are not paid attention to by higher educational teachers and coaches. In our opinion the reasons are as follows:…”

“…In the study of Harris J. physical culture education of students, propaganda of healthy and active way of life was regarded [26]. In opinion of many authors life quality is subjective assessment of satisfaction with different aspects of life; the felt life quality, subjective feelings of individual, formed on the base of certain life conditions and emotional state [27].…”