Scheduled for Pedagogy and Sociocultural Posters, Friday, April 2, 2004, 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM, Convention Center: Exhibit Hall Poster Session


Analysis of the Undergraduate Physical Education Teacher Certification Activity Requirements Within the United States

Carl P. Bahneman and John C. McGrath, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV

There has been much legislation and numerous education projects directed toward curriculum reform. Recently, "America 2000," gave a vision of American education. What is it that a student should learn in public school physical education? Recently, various constituencies have agreed on the content and process of measuring youth fitness (Fitness Gram). Freeman, 1997 and others state that the theorhetical bases of physical education are sport, movement and fitness. The authors suggest that the lack of agreement among professionals and among programs causes a constant state of ambiguity and uncertainty. For example, should every public school student know about, and be able to perform certain sport, and movement skills as is currently agreed upon relative to youth fitness. The purpose of this study was to identify and enumerate the "physical education teacher education" certification program activity requirements within colleges and universities throughout the United States. The graduates from these programs will be the future public school physical educators. It is assumed that substantial agreement among programs regarding activity requirements will be a starting point to begin making some decisions about what is essential regarding sport, movement and fitness content. Within the United States, 537 institutions were identified as having physical education programs (Human Kinetics, 1987). One half of these institutions (268), were randomly selected to participate in this study. Complete sets of curricular materials were obtained from each of the participating institutions. Of the 268 institutions solicited, 180 (67%), participated in this study. From the materials received, all sport, movement and fitness activities were listed by occurence (number of institutions which require the activity), credit hours assigned to the activity and percent of institutions which require the activity. The data show that 49% or more of the participating programs require the following twelve activities: Acquatics, Badminton, Basketball, Field Hockey, Golf, Gymnastics, Softball, Team Handball, Track and Field, Volleyball, Wrestling and Football (flag or touch). Movement skills, i.e., locomotor skills, manipulative skills, etc., were required by all (100%) of the participating programs. The credit hour requirement however, ranged from one to three. The data which were most surprising showed that less than half of the institutions required any type of fitness activity. Although there is some agreement among institutions relative to requiring sport, movement and fitness activities in teacher preparation programs, the lack of agreement about essential content is of great concern.
Keyword(s): curriculum development, professional development

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