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Research on physical educators’ value orientations has identified five orientations: disciplinary mastery, learning process, self-actualization, social responsibility, and ecological integration. An interpretive research design was used to compare the extent to which 2 physical education teachers’ content differed because of their value orientations. Findings revealed that the 2 teachers established curriculum goals and emphasized aspects of the physical education content that were associated with their individual value orientations. Dan, a learning-process-oriented teacher, stressed teaching students learning skills by breaking down movement skills into simple elements. John, a social-responsibility-oriented teacher, emphasized teaching social responsibility through physical activities. Both teachers viewed learning physical activities as a means to develop students’ analytic or social skills. However, philosophical differences were found in how curricular goals and content were determined. The findings suggest that clarifying teachers’ value orientations should be considered an appropriate initial step in curriculum innovation and change.

The purpose of the study was to understand how contextual factors influenced three teachers’ willingness to embrace and implement a curriculum based on the teaching of thinking skills within middle school physical education. The teachers were selected because teaching thinking skills was an important part of the central mission of their schools, and they were involved in planning and teaching thinking skills in physical education. Observations of lessons, formal interviews with the teachers and administrators, and curriculum documents provided the data base for analysis using constant comparison and analytic induction. In addition, the value orientations of all teachers within each department were obtained using the Value Orientation Inventory (Ennis & Chen, 1993). Results indicated that school and community support, teacher value orientation and collegiality, and teacher’s perception of the relationship of physical education to broader curricular innovation influenced the teachers’ acceptance of teaching thinking skills as a curricular focus.

A worldwide survey by Hardman and Marshall (2001) indicated a decline in the state and status of Physical Education (PE) in many countries. Using a modified Physical Education and School Sport (PESS) questionnaire (Bailey and Dismore, 2005), we examined age and gender differences in the perception and value orientation of PESS among 285 children in South-West Poland. Data analysis yielded marked age and gender differences with respect to feelings about PESS, its importance relative to other school subjects and development of social skills. Children’s responses were categorized as physical, cognitive, social, affective, lifestyle and environmental based on the outcomes and benefits of PESS (Bailey, 2006). The children attributed their positive feelings toward PESS and favorite part of PESS to the physical domain. This finding was consistent across age and gender categories, except that a tendency toward decline in the importance of the physical domain was found among older children. The need for learners’ value orientation to be considered by teachers and curriculum developers to design and implement quality PESS programs is discussed.

Advertisers put considerable effort into developing messages that appeal to a persuadable target group. Based on the characteristics of these audiences, as well as a number of situational factors, advertising messages can be described as primarily informational or emotional. The purpose of this study was to test how the value orientation of a sports-related event and situational involvement moderate consumers’ information processing and attitudes toward the event advertisement. Consistent with dual-process theory, the results indicate that, when dealing with information about a utilitarian sports career-fair event, consumers rely on either effortful or effortless processing depending on their level of situational involvement. However, consumers use both effortful and effortless processing for a hedonic sporting event. This study extends the dual-process theory and planning models by suggesting that a traditional, theory-based dichotomous dual-process model should give way to a co-occurrence model for hedonic sporting events in high-involvement situations.

The official value orientation of international sport emphasizes common good causes such as international understanding, peace, friendship, and Olympic solidarity. However, when nations compete in international sport events their operational goals are defined in terms of national interests and materialized in terms of competitive success. This is a basic dilemma and contradiction in international sport, and it is clearly evident in the Olympic movement. While the International Olympic Committee (IOC) operates on the basis of common good causes, the national Olympic committees (NOCs) operate on the basis of national interests. In fact, the NOCs are even reluctant to supervise any rules and resolutions interfering with this national pursuit of success, let alone recognize the common good values in international sport. In this paper it is hypothesized that international sport is vulnerable to a legitimation crisis because it is premised on values that are incompatible with the values and policies that guide involvement at the national level. This hypothesis is based on the results of a semantic differential pilot study through which the basic ideological concepts of international sport are compared with the operational concepts underlying national sport systems. It is concluded that since we know very little about the meanings people assign to international sport, it is difficult to make statements about the consequences of international events.