The impact of the outsourcing of Health and Physical Education on curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment

Abstract

Health and Physical Education (HPE) futures are currently the focus of much speculation. Part of the conjecture relates to the role of the HPE teacher, as the subject’s curricular work is increasingly outsourced to external agencies. There is, however, currently a dearth of information on how HPE curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment are being shaped by the interests, agendas, and knowledge of external agencies. Moreover, little is known about the pedagogical experiences of students in externally provided HPE lessons and their perspectives on outsourcing. This thesis seeks to begin to address these knowledge gaps. Guiding this study are research questions about how the decision to partner with an external agency impacts curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment within HPE as well as how students view the involvement of external agencies in HPE. Tennis Australia’s Tennis in Secondary Schools (TSS) Program was selected as a specific case study for this thesis through the process of conducting network ethnography. This methodological approach included: completing a web-audit of the Australian marketplace of external providers available to HPE teachers; collecting Tennis Australia’s advertising, product materials, and teacher resources; and conducting a semi-structured group interview with three of their employees who worked in departments focused on Schools, Program Development, and Coach Education. A critical discourse analysis was undertaken on these data sources. An independent, co-educational secondary school in Australia delivering the Cardio Tennis component of Tennis Australia’s TSS Program was then selected as a research site. Data were generated through: focus groups with 25 Year Eight students; semi-structured individual interviews with four school staff, in the roles of Senior Lead Teacher, Junior Lead Teacher, HPE Teacher, and Tennis Coach; and observations of their Cardio Tennis lessons. These school data were then thematically analysed. Both analyses were informed by Bernsteinian theory. Findings from this research are presented across three chapters. The findings demonstrated that Tennis Australia is creating increasingly sophisticated programs by investing in understanding Australian curricular requirements. This study also highlighted the changing role of the HPE Teacher, in particular their growing responsibility to: evaluate external providers and critically analyse their marketing claims (knowledge-brokers); mediate the interests and agendas external providers bring into HPE (boundary spanners); and determine the appropriate division of labour between themselves and the external provider for curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment (boundary spanners). Further, the data generated with students reinforced how crucial it is to seek out their voices and perspectives. The students in this study offered unique insights into pedagogical and ethical issues relating to teaching and learning in their externally provided HPE classes. This thesis makes a number of academic contributions. Firstly, the findings of this study emphasise the need to develop a definition of outsourcing that is more relevant and reflective of the practice in HPE, rather than simply transferring a business and management definition into this context. Secondly, this thesis demonstrates the utility of network ethnography as a methodology for researching pedagogic spaces and engages with Bernsteinian theory in a way that contributes meaningfully to the rich range of theoretical perspectives on the outsourcing of HPE. Finally, the findings begin to address the knowledge gaps in the field in relation to how the outsourcing of HPE operates in, and impacts, secondary school contexts, the effect that educational partnership decisions have on curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment in HPE, and student perspectives on the topic. This new knowledge has the potential to not only impact the future of HPE teachers and their work, but also facilitate the creation of guidelines for how schools should engage with external entities if outsourcing HPE curricular work.