Physical Education Websites: Are We Painting a Positive Self-Portrait?

Background/Purpose: Physical education has long been stereotyped as being a pseudo profession lacking seriousness, substance, credibility and purpose; a discipline, inundated with programs of low quality, which remains at risk for continued inclusion (Griffey, 1987; Locke, 1992; Siedentop, 1987; Rink 2002). In the interest of establishing physical education as necessary and credible, it is crucial that professionals in the field advocate their charge with a clear, unified vision and market the positive contributions their programs are making to the education and lives of children across the country.  In today’s technologically advanced society, one highly effective means for accomplishing this task is through the creation and maintenance of informative, user-friendly and captivating websites.  Undoubtedly, both the presence and quality of a website contribute to the public’s perception of an organization.  Thus the purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence and quality of physical education websites among public schools in the state of Alabama. 

Method: In the interest of obtaining a comprehensive answer to this question, all public school websites in the state of Alabama (n=1,264) were reviewed.  Schools were identified using the Alabama School Connection.  The quality of physical education webpages was assessed using the methodology and instrument described by Hill, Tucker & Hannon (2010). 

Analysis/Results: The findings of the study revealed that only 157 out of 1,264 (12.4%) school websites had a webpage specifically dedicated to the subject of physical education.  Furthermore, the majority of the 157 physical education webpages were, in many ways, low in quality, suggesting that they may actually be perpetuating the stigma of insignificance already pinned to the profession.  It is conceded that a high-quality webpage may not translate to a high-quality program, however, a high-quality program, in the modern era, should include a high-quality webpage. 

Conclusions: While more research is needed to be able to confidently generalize these findings as the status quo for physical education in America, the results do suggest that physical education teachers can do more to change public perception and strengthen the credibility of the discipline. Implications stemming from this work include recommendations for PETE programs and professional organizations such as SHAPE to emphasize the importance of publicizing physical education programs through professional websites as one of the avenues for physical education advocacy.