Ensuring quality physical education (PE) instruction: the role of department heads

Abstract

Being a challenging endeavour, achieving high quality has always been prioritized in education. It is assumed that in order to permeate quality in education, one should start providing educators with quality education. The initiating motive of this study was based on this notion. The efforts of the PE department heads to ensure high quality instruction so as to train prospective PE teachers were investigated drawing parallels to the policies of the ministry of education and European commission. Further, the management practices in relation to establishing high quality standards in the formerly established and newly established physical education departments were evaluated. In order to fulfil the research aim, four PE department heads were interviewed to find that accreditation, research, innovative approaches and coordination were highly valued in their quest of high quality PE instruction.