Physical Edu Research Articles

Current Situation in Teaching Physical Education at Universities in the Slovak Republic

The aim of the study was to draw an accurate picture of the current situation in teaching physical education at universities in the Slovak Republic. The authors seek further ways of sustaining and developing it as a prerequisite for a healthy lifestyle of the university population. The analysis confirmed that technical universities in Slovakia show a substantially more positive approach towards physical education in their curriculum than social and natural sciences universities. Of the 105 monitored faculties of public universities, physical education is listed as a compulsory subject at 13 out of 27 faculties of technical universities and only at 9 out of 78 faculties with a humanities focus. Physical edu- cation is present at every faculty of technical universities in our research; the situation is much less favorable at all other universities, where as many as 45 faculties do not offer physical education in their curriculum. Among them are faculties that educate future primary and secondary school teachers. We further found that directly affiliated university departments of Physical Education have a better chance of maintaining sport and physical activity at university, whether as compulsory part of the higher education curricula or as extracurricular optional sporting activities.

El cuestionario de atribuciones para educación física: análisis exploratorio y confirmatorio [The attributions questionaire for the physical education: Exploratory and confirmation analysis

Resumen El Cuestionario de atribuciones para Educacion Fisica fue elaborado para evaluar las atribuciones causales de los estudiantes en las clases de Educacion Fisica. Se asume que las atribuciones para el resultado de los sujetos afectan a sus expectativas y al esfuerzo que hacen durante la ejecucion (Weiner, 1986, 1992, 1995). La muestra estaba compuesta por 574 estudiantes de ESO quienes respondieron al Cuestionario de Atribuciones para Educacion Fisica. Se llevan a cabo analisis factorial exploratorio, analisis de fiabilidad y de discriminacion, asi como analisis factoriales confirmatorios. Los resultados indicaron la existencia de dos factores -atribucion interna y atribucion externa-, la fiabilidad del cuestionario fue aceptable y los valores obtenidos para los distintos indices de bondad de ajuste correspondientes a la solucion completamente estandarizada permitieron concluir que el modelo ajusta a los datos y aportan pruebas de la validez de constructo del cuestionario. Abstract The Attributional Questionnaire for Physical Education was elaborated for the student's causal attributions evaluation in physical education classes. It was assumed that the attributions for the subjects's outcomes has an effect on their expectancies and on the effort that provides on the performance (Weiner, 1986, 1992, 1996). The sample were 574 secondary education students who completed the Attributions Questionnaire for Physical Education. Were carried out exploratory factorial analysis, realibity and discrimination analysis, and confirmatory factorial analysis. The results showed that to exist two factors, internal and external attributions, the questionnaire's reability was acceptable, and the obteined values for the several goodness of fit indexes corresponding to completely standardized solution permits to conclude that the model fit the data, and evidences of the questionnaire's construct validity were obtained.

Moving and Belonging: Dance, sport and sexuality

In this paper I explore the notion of gendered 'investments' in particular forms of physical activity; what is at stake when people choose one way of using their body rather than others? First, I present data from a life history interview with, Ralph, an Australian professional male dancer. In this interview, Ralph talks about the way he has experienced dance throughout his life and how his investments in being a particular kind of male (straight identifying, 'cool') have shaped these experiences. That is, rather than experience being a shaper of identity, I suggest the reverse. Second, I relate the contextually specific nature and constructedness of these investments to physical edu cation. Why does physical education take the form it does and why, given its often-stated goal to expand the movement repertoires of children, is it so closely identified with sport? I conclude by critiquing the view of mainstream physical educators which sees sport as a 'natural' pleasure, as an expression of 'normal' child development and as the 'common sense' subject matter for physical education. I argue that these appeals to the 'natural' obscure physical education's location within heteronormative regimes of bodily practice. Instead, sport and dance can justifiably be seen as politically 'erotic'. In short, I argue that physical education is one site amongst many others in which the bodily and sexual conformity of citizens is pursued.

Profiles of Physical Education Strategies: A Cross- National Comparison of Preferences of English and Canadian Teachers

This study was designed to compare strategic teaching preferences of physical educators in two national settings, and to assess the impact of selected teacher characteristics and teaching situations upon these preference profiles. A field study employing a structured questionnaire was administered to two samples of physical education teachers, one from Canada ( n=178) and the other from England ( n =53). Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was used to test the main and in teraction effects of national setting, teacher age, gender, and teaching level upon preferences for instructional goals, tactics, and resources. The analysis revealed significant national differences, in all dimensions of the teaching strategy space. While Canadian physical educators placed emphasis upon fitness and the deve lopment of skills for future life-styles, British teachers attached more importance to fun and the promotion of team spirit as major physical education goals. Ca nadians demonstrated greater adherence to the use of innovative delivery techno logies and the promotion of student self-management. The British physical edu cators, however, placed the most emphasis upon the type of class organization that would lead to a maximum of skill teaching in class. Male Canadians preferred the more formal command method for teaching large groups, but it was the British female, rather than the male teachers who matched their enthusiasm.

Empirical Determination of the Relative Importance of Educational Objectives

EVALUATION BY definition requires a ''value judgment. Individuals interested in systematical ly evaluating programs of instruction and courses of study must be concerned with objectives which are specified adequately. It is reasonable to con clude that many individuals concerned with evalua tive research efforts have focused primarily on pro cess rather than product (2, 4). The value judg relative to the evaluative process deals pri marily with the establishment of objectives, i. e., desired end products. A typical rationalization employed for the non utilization of product criteria in educational evalua tion is that a lack of agreement exists with refer ence to basic educational objectives. Therefore, process and presage criteria are used for evalua ting educational outcomes. For example, a school may state as one of its desired outcomes for stu dents, .. .to use their leisure time inaworth while fashion. However, rather than assess this directly, which would of course be quite difficult, process criteria (e. g. existence of physical edu cation courses in the curriculum) may be used, and based on the fulfillment of these it is inferred that the product criterion is being achieved. It is pat ently unreasonable to infer that products are achieved, unless a functional relationship can be shown to exist between process and product. The only true test, of course, would be to assess directly the degree of accomplishment of the desired prod ucts. The crux of the problem appears to be in the as sertion that a lack of agreement exists concerning the broad general objectives of education. It is ob viously difficult, if not worthless, to evaluate ob jectives which perhaps are not perceived as objec tives by all concerned. It would appear to be worth while to attempt to ascertain whether various groups in education perceive stated objectives in the same I order of relative importance. For example, a school district may have a stated philosophy of education which lists objectives A, B, C, D, and E in hier archical order. However, would systematic assess ment of the judgments of this district's instruction al staff regarding these stated objectives reveal that the objectives are perceived in the same order of importance, or in some other manner? If, in any given educational setting, it can be demonstrated that the individuals concerned with their achieve ment of objectives agree to their relative impor tance, a second step can be taken. Statements of behaviors indicative of the agreed-upon objectives can be made and subjected to the same test. Even tually, specific skills and knowledges to be learned in order to achieve the desired behaviors and the overall general objectives can be stated. With this accomplished, there would at least be a logical con nection between classroom learning in daily situa tions and overall objectives. Evaluation procedures could then be employed to determine if, in fact, over all objectives were being achieved and, if not, nec essary changes could be made. The specific purpose of this study was to deter mine whether through the use of techniques of scal ing, the relative importance of educational obj ec tives can be determined. Parenthetically, it can be stated that if a series of educational objectives can be shown on an interval scale, this would indicate the relative importance of the objectives as well as demonstrate agreement concerning the series.