Background/Purpose: School districts generally do not require physical education programs to adhere to a prescribed curriculum. On-going formal professional development is known to help physical educators (Armour & Yelling, 2007). Grounded in the fidelity of curricular implementation literature, the purpose of this study was to investigate whether teacher fidelity to a specific curriculum was affected by the level of district-delivered professional development support and oversight.
Method: Participants were elementary physical education teachers (N=20) from seven school districts, all of whom were prepared in the Dynamic Physical Education (DPE) model from the same University. Ten teachers taught DPE in a district with high support and oversight, while 10 teachers taught in non-support/-oversight districts. Data were collected using a validated observation fidelity checklist, field notes, informal interviews, and document analysis.
Analysis/Results: Descriptive statistics and t-tests were run to investigate differences between teacher support groups based on the checklist (Author, 2011). Teachers in the high support district were significantly more faithful to the DPE curricular model across all three observations (t(2.87) = -8.91, p < .01). Two qualitative themes were identified regarding teacher fidelity: (a) district support led to higher teacher fidelity levels to the DPE curriculum/schedule, and (b) teachers from the non-support district implemented management procedures differently.
Conclusions: Similar to many other studies related to fidelity of curricular implementation, this study showed different levels of teacher fidelity based on district support levels. Fidelity levels were related to being prepared to teach the curricular model, ongoing professional development, and administrative support.
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