Using the Social Ecological Constraints model, a qualitative multiple case study design was used to explore experienced and committed middle school physical education teachers’ perspectives on overweight and obese students (OWS), and how and why they acted to include OWS in physical education and physical activity opportunities in their school environments. Three themes emerged. 1) OWS are “the same, but different.” Teachers attempted to treat all students the same, but perceived variations among OWS’ participation in PE and related individual constraints. 2) Teachers’ concerns lead to individual goals and specific actions. Teachers identified specific goals and approaches to help individual OWS who needed extra attention. 3) OWS are a responsibility and challenge. Many of these teachers felt a responsibility to devote extra time and effort to help struggling OWS to succeed. These teachers avoided obesity bias, and exhibited beliefs and actions similar to a caring perspective.
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Middle School Physical Education Teachers’ Perspectives on Overweight Students
Sarah A. Doolittle, Paul B. Rukavina, Weidong Li, Mara Manson, and Angela Beale
How Do Children Think They Learn Skills in Physical Education?
Jeroen Koekoek, Annelies Knoppers, and Harry Stegeman
Relatively little is known about the ways in which children understand and perceive how they learn tasks or skills in physical education classes. The purpose of this study was to use a constructivist framework to explore how children express their experiences, thoughts, and feelings about how they learn in physical education classes. A variety of methods (semistructured interviews, draw and write exercises, and focus groups) were used to examine how 29 children, aged 11–13, perceived assigned tasks. Results indicated that these children could express themselves in a limited way about their learning experiences and that each method yielded similar and different information. We discuss the implications of these findings for research methodology and quality instruction in physical education.
Achievement Goals, Social Goals, and Students’ Reported Persistence and Effort in High School Physical Education
Jianmin Guan, Ping Xiang, Ron McBride, and April Bruene
This study examined the relationship between achievement goals and social goals and explored how students’ achievement goals and social goals might affect their reported persistence and effort expended toward physical education in high school settings. Participants were 544 students from two high schools in the southwest U.S. Multiple regression analysis revealed that social responsibility goals represented the greatest contributor to students’ expenditure of persistence and effort toward physical education. This was followed by mastery-approach goals, mastery-avoidance goals, and performance-approach goals. In addition, girls reported significantly higher values on both social-relationship goals and responsibility goals than did boys. Findings revealed that students had multiple goals for wanting to succeed in physical education; using both achievement goals and social goals when studying student motivation and achievement in high school physical education settings is recommend.
Exploring Solidarity in Action: Key Methodological Features for Collaborative Research in Physical Education
Luiz Gustavo Bonatto Rufino, Cassandra Iannucci, Deniz Hunuk, Carla Vidoni, Carla Nascimento Luguetti, Luiza Lana Gonçalves, Heidi Jancer Ferreira, Paula Batista, Cecilia Borges, Ann MacPhail, Luiz Sanches Neto, and Samuel de Souza Neto
al., 2019 ). Consistent with these perspectives, we argue that integrating solidarity in action (SIA) promotes a more inclusive, equitable, and transformative collaborative research experience ( Luguetti et al., 2022 ). In the field of physical education (PE), there is a growing recognition of the need for
Sport and Physical Activity for Positive Youth Development Related to Social and Emotional Learning: Reflections From the Know-Do Gap
Paul M. Wright
practice and policy to the benefit of individuals and society. Within my subdiscipline of physical education and sport pedagogy, we have a strong tradition of this broader approach to scholarship with a prime example being my mentor, Don Hellison ( Wright, Fuerniss, & Cutforth, 2020 ). He and others have
Two Randomized Controlled Trials to Help Teachers Develop Physical Education Students’ Course-Specific Grit-Perseverance and Mental Toughness
Sung Hyeon Cheon, Johnmarshall Reeve, Woo-Young Joo, Yong-Gwan Song, Richard M. Ryan, and Hyungshim Jang
). Recognizing that these ways of thinking during challenges and setbacks support people’s stick-to-itiveness, the purpose of the present investigation was to understand and explain the conditions under which grit-perseverance and mental toughness might grow and develop during the year-long physical education
The Ambiguous Role of the Paraeducator in the General Physical Education Environment
Rebecca R. Bryan, Jeffrey A. McCubbin, and Hans van der Mars
The use of paraeducators has increased as a main mechanism to include more students with disabilities in the public schools in the U.S. Although the utilization of paraeducators is intended to be a supportive service delivery option, many concerns and challenges have resulted. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of the paraeducator in the general physical education environment from the perspectives of special education, physical education, and adapted physical education teachers and paraeducators. Data were collected from a phenomenological approach using questionnaires, interviews, and observations. Results indicate concerns about the clarity of the role of the paraeducator in physical education. Emerging themes include elastic definitions of student protection and teacher backup, contradictory expectations and mixed acceptance, and paraeducators’ role ambiguity. Findings regarding the role of the paraeducator are essential in determining both best practice and legal policy for the appropriate utilization of paraeducators in physical education.
Physical Education Teachers’ Content Knowledge of Movement Capability
Gunn Nyberg and Hakan Larsson
The purpose of this article is to explore physical education (PE) teachers’ content knowledge of the emerging concept movement capability. Interviews with eight PE teachers were conducted, partly using a stimulated recall technique which involved watching and commenting on video recorded PE lessons. A phenomenographic analysis was used to outline the different ways of conceptualizing movement capability. Five different ways of conceptualizing movement capability were identified, which indicates the complexity of the concept movement capability. However, the result also provides a structure for developing a systematic and structured way of conceiving movement capability. In this study we have highlighted a multifaceted, nuanced and differentiated picture of movement capability to see moving as educationally valuable. We conclude by emphasizing that movement capability should not be restricted to only its constitutive parts as teachers’ plan PE teaching, but should be approached as a whole.
The Ecology of Cooperative Learning in Elementary Physical Education Classes
Ben P. Dyson, Nicole Rhodes Linehan, and Peter A. Hastie
The purpose of this study was to describe and interpret the instructional ecology of Cooperative Learning in elementary physical education classes. Data collection included a modified version of the task structure system (Siedentop, 1994), interviews, field notes, and a teacher’s journal. T-tests of the quantitative data revealed that instruction time, management time, transitions, and wait time decreased significantly during the units and refining, extending, and applying tasks increased significantly. Cognitive/social tasks were observed consistently in every lesson and contributed to student learning. Inductive analysis and constant comparison were used to analyze the qualitative data (Patton, 1990). The researchers identified four main categories from this data: organization and management of students, roles, skill development, and strategizing. To promote individual accountability the teacher used task sheets, assigned Cooperative Learning roles, kept group sizes small, randomly chose students to demonstrate their competence, and asked students to teach their teammates skills and tactics.
A Feminist Poststructuralist View on Student Bodies in Physical Education: Sites of Compliance, Resistance, and Transformation
Laura Azzarito and Melinda A. Solmon
The study of the social construction of the body has become crucial to contemporary academic discourses in education and physical education. Employing feminist poststructuralist theory and a qualitative ethnographic design, this study investigated how high school students identified themselves with images of bodies drawn from fitness and sports magazines, and how their body narratives were linked to their participation in physical education. Students’ body narratives reflected notions of comfortable, bad, and borderland bodies that influenced students’ physical activity choices and engagement in physical education. Girls’ narratives of their physicality were found to be significantly less comfortable than boys’. Critical pedagogy to destabilize gendered dominant discourses of mass media body culture and to develop positive, meaningful, and empowering student physicality is discussed.
