National Teachers of the Year's Outcome Priorities: Influence of Experience

Background/Purpose: Since schools are where most children spend between 40 to 45% of their waking hours (Fox, Cooper, & McKenna, 2004), they are important environments in which to engage children in physical activity. Because physical educators typically lead schools’ physical activity efforts, understanding their attitudes toward teaching physical activity is warranted. Teachers have diverse belief systems related to the relative importance of various physical education goals. This study was grounded in teacher beliefs theory (Pajares, 1992). The purpose was to examine whether NASPE Teachers’ of the Year (TOYs) beliefs systems toward outcome priorities in physical education was related to years of teaching experience and the levels at which they taught. 

Method: After obtaining IRB approval, 22 TOYs agreed to take part in the study. Participants’ experience ranged from 8 to 38 years; teaching contexts varied across elementary, middle, and high school levels. Each participated in in-depth interviews, which utilized a standardized open-ended interview approach (Patton, 2002), and completed the Attitudes Toward Curriculum in Physical Education (Kulinna & Silverman, 1999) inventory. The interview and inventory explored the espoused beliefs systems of the teachers toward outcome priorities in physical education.

Analysis/Results: Interviews were tape recorded and transcribed verbatim. Open and axial coding were used to establish common themes within the responses, relating to teacher beliefs theory. Questionnaire data were analyzed using descriptive data from responses, linking these to interview data as triangulation. A main theme was that motor skill development was highly valued in curriculum, yet no participant stated that this was the most important to their teaching. A second theme was that across all experience levels, TOYs in high school all considered individual development and emotional development to be the most important aspects in their teaching. Further, those who believed that fitness development was a priority referred to the influence that increasing fitness had on students’ levels of confidence. This suggests that fitness development as a standalone may be partially influential because of the concomitant benefits. No trends were noted among experience levels in TOYs.

Conclusions: The espoused beliefs systems of the high school teachers tended to place value on more affective outcomes to their teaching, whereas middle and elementary teachers tended to value motor skill and fitness aspects. Outcome priorities in physical education were not necessarily associated with teaching experience.