Physical Education in Primary Schools - Dissertation Example

Physical Education in Primary Schools Abstract This paper presents a research proposal that intends at looking the coaching of physical education and the experiences of coaches in the primary school and determines the problems experienced. In our day to day life training of physical education and sports activities are some of the indispensable occupations of our time. Additionally it is important to note that apart from being an occupation of entertainment and free time sports have also a function that develop health and contributes joy and happiness to the pupils’ daily lives. This subject of Physical education and the sports have become signs of contemporariness and approximately universally the average beginning age for children’s participation in team or individual sport activities is between ages of 6 and 13. It should be realized that at this age most children start to participate in school Physical Education and Sport courses. Additionally Physical Education is not an elective subject. Thus it is a key course and primary schools ought to have a coach of physical education program. Even though the physical education teachers are educated in various public and private physical education institutions, the key points of the curriculums are the same (Thompson, 1996). Rationale for the research Appreciate the fact that all of the Physical Education programs for the eight-year mandatory primary schools are monitored and constituted through the ministry of education. on the other hand the P.E. curriculums for education coaches are administrated centrally and monitored by the ministry of education. A few special programs for training and preparing quality physical education and sports coaches to train high level physical education and sports subjects at 8-year compulsory primary education schools are needed. The effectiveness of the current programs that applied at majority primary schools is an important concern of this study. One of the main the purposes of this research is to find out to what extent the physical education coaching programs that are presently used by those higher institutions are effectively and successfully training preparing physical education coaches to to train sports at primary schools (Armour & Yelling ,2004). Educations can be said to be a planned and programmed process which is applied in order to achieve the desired changes in behavior of a pupil. The main basic and elements of education are the student and the teacher. In addition to lecturing the role of a teacher should be directed mostly towards guiding and advising the pupil. The same applies when it comes to coaching physical education and sports. There is a need for Physical education coach to guide students according to their interest and skills. So that to achieve the desired social, mental, psychological and psychomotor developments the sports tutor need to be creative and develop important student specific tasks to improve individual creativity of various age groups of pupil. Importance must be given to the programs that deal with children who are at the lower level of life. Hence the need for modernization of the programs to improve both the ability of sports coaches to teach effective physical education subjects and the program tools which will be used in this process. Most people think that currently most physical education coaches are ill prepared to successfully train physical education courses at the primary schools. Literature review Training of physical education is one of the issues that need to be addressed. The focus should shift to the experiences of coaches in training this course. There is a reliable source of literature already existing in this area that this dissertation intends to build on. It should be noted that Coaching is a very gratifying venture as a result of working with aspiring players the challenge of coming up with an effective outline, the fulfillment driven from coaching sport skills, and the chance to facilitate athletes' psychosocial growth (Raedeke, 2004). To be more precise the sport coach can have an important impact on players and more particularly young primary children in the development and enjoyment of sport (Hedstrom & Gould, 2004). Additionally, the contemporary problems experienced by coaches means there is a need for youth sports and their coaches to have know and address these problems and challenges in this area in the future (Hedstrom & Gould, 2004). In contrast, little social, educational, financial, and psychological support exists for the development and retention of physical education coaches given their significance overall development of young players. When we look at the significance of the coach in determining the quality and success of a pupil’s sport experience, the existence of data that essentially relates to coaching and the development and retention of coaches is amazingly negligible. Previous research shows that sports coaches can influence whether the young player has a positive or negative sports experience (Gilbert, Gilbert and Trudel, 2001). In their research Smith, Smoll and colleagues (Smith, Smoll and Curtis, 1979; Smith et al., 1993; Smith and Smoll, 2002) have investigated on how coaching and coaches’ experiences and behaviors influence a player’s satisfaction. They suggest that players with a trained coach show and display self esteem, increased motivation, and satisfaction with their coach, teammates and throughout the season. Sports Coaches should also realize that children aged between 8 and12 years view their competence in relation to peer comparison so feedback ought to be task oriented but not performance focused (Horn and Harris, 2002) in this review Under 10’s age group researched in this study being part of the sampling years (6-12 years) that is in the Developmental Model of Sport Participation (Cote, Baker and Abernethy, 2003). Here emphasis is on diversity of sport and a concern on deliberate play activities is important in nurturing player perceptions of competence which add to continued participation (Kirk, 2005). Player Coaching activities are aimed at increasing player fun and enjoyment and this is intrinsically motivation. Coaching provides chance for players to experiment and be creative without being told the right way to show a skill (Cote and Fraser-Thomas, 2008). There are views that an over emphasis on practice during the sampling years can result into sport drop out, burn-out, injuries and reduced enjoyment. When history is considered it is realized that successful physical education programs have one thing in common and that is that they all use history as a learning process. Example those who prepared and developed the modern physical education programs in the US have benefited from teaching philosophies of Europe (Lumpkin, 1990). Universally, the first modern efforts in order to train contemporary physical education teachers started in the 18Th Century in Europe and in the USA (Friedman, 1983). If it can be remembered in the Ottoman Empire these subjects of physical education entered the Curriculum in 1846 in the name of Gymnastics which was as consequence of the Tanzimat decree declared in 1839 during the reign of Sultan Abdulmecit (Kasap, 1992). Therefore Selim Sirri Tarcan attended the Heyet-I Ilmiye which was assembled in 1923 and succeeded in integrating one year long the was termed as physical education teachers school into the government program (Terbiye-i Bedeniye DarUlmuallimini). Research question The research intends to answer the following question: What are the experiences of sports coaches at primary school in teaching physical education? Hypothesis The hypotheses to be proved or disapproved by the research are: 1. Primary schools have adequate trained sports tutors 2. Untrained sports tutors cannot effectively teach physical education. 3. Physical activity when initiated during the primary level results in ongoing physical activity throughout the life of the individual thereby promoting that pupil's health status in adulthood. 4. A Physical Education class in primary school improves the pupil’s emotional and mental health thereby providing improvement to the student's physical health as well. Objectives The aim of the research is to conduct an investigation to develop a deeper comprehension of the experiences of sports coaches in primary schools. The research revolves around the following objectives: 1. To determine the proportion of time physical education coaches spend organizing their players 2. To determine the proportion of time physical education coaches spend instructing their players 3. To determine how active players are during a coaching session in primary schools 4. To determine how often young players in school get to practice performing the skills of their respective games 5. To determine whether physical education coaches have an accurate comprehension of how active their players are during a coaching period 6. To determine how different levels of coach accreditation and the experience of the physical education coaches impacts on player activity and interest. Design and procedure This study shall employ a mixed method sequential design (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2003), which consists of an exploratory questionnaire followed that is by interviews with individuals will be targeted on the basis of their quantitative questionnaire responses. This methodology will allow features of groups or individuals that are identified through one form of measurement to be then used to shape and interpret further data collection (Tashakkori & Teddlie). Since there is no data previously gathered in this area of, the questionnaire will largely serve a more general descriptive purpose. This dissertation will focuses on two of five sections of the questionnaire which are respondent demographics and subject specialist teacher use in the school in general and for Physical Education/Sport specifically. Methodology By using methods of convenient sampling (Gall et al, 1996) the study will involve about 200 participants in total, 20 coaches and 205 primary school players around Turkey. Systematic observation of these coaches and their respective teams will be undertaken thrice during the school period of 2011 academic year in Turkey. Three research assistants will visit each training session with one assistant keenly observing the session using the System for Observing Fitness Instruction Time (McKenzie, Sallis and Nader, 1991). The other research assistant will videotape the session to make the training session to be viewed and coded at some future date using an observational instrument got from the Coach Behavioral Assessment System (Smith, Smoll and Hunt, 1977). Data will also be collected at these sessions through pre and post session coach interviews and using an adapted Player Enjoyment Scale (Motl, et al.,2001). Procedure The data that will be obtained in order to fulfill the purposes of the research shall be provided by the surveys that shall be created by the researchers. The survey form will be prepared by means of the programs of the 50 physical education and sports teaching departments of primary schools. In this context the programs which are aimed at training physical education and sports teachers will be scanned and the related courses shall be determined for the physical education and sports teachers who will be on duty at primary and secondary schools. Semi structured interview The research shall also use semi structured interviews in collecting data. The reason is that the semi-structured interview will be a qualitative data collection method in which the researcher will ask informants a series of predetermined but open-ended questions that he will have prepared. Another reason for this method is that the researcher will have more control over the topics of the interview than in unstructured interviews. However in contrast to structured interviews or questionnaires that use closed questions there is usually no fixed range of responses to each question. Researchers will develop a written interview guide in advance. The interview guide will be very specific with carefully worded questions or it will consist of a list of topics to be covered. The interviewer will follow the guide to the letter by asking the questions in the order they will have been given or the researcher will move back and forth through the topic list based on the informant’s responses Data analysis The analysis will be based on the data collected from interviews, questionnaires, and other records. These data will provide information on physical education in primary schools and other operational activities. This result shall be inferred through tabulation comparisons of observations. Respondents will be asked whether they have ever conducted a physical education training evaluation in the past three years which will be a broad indicator of their propensity to manage and train physical education provided their reports to this study. Ethical considerations It is equally important to note that the respondents understand that they have the right to say "No", and that they can exercise this right at any time in the course of the research process. Therefore, before initiating interviews or other related research activities the researcher shall have a responsibility to ensure that no harm will befall the interviewee or respondents as a result of their participation in the research process. To ensure this there will be a need to solicit views and consent from people concerned like head teacher, teachers, parents, guardians and pupils and this will be wherever it is an appropriate and safe thing to do. During the research information that is provided to researchers by the respondents shall be treated as confidential and this will involve Anonymisation in the form of removing names and other identifying information. It must be strictly adhered to, and should be explained to respondents participating in the research process. But except under special circumstances it shall be revealed to others outside the research team only with the respondent’s permission. These special circumstances when researchers will feel it necessary to break confidentiality will include those in which respondents are considered to be in danger (Russell-Bowie, 1996). References Cossins (2000) The One Hundred Greatest Golfers: Generation Publications Hoffman, J.R. Champaign, IL (2001), Physiological Aspects of Sport Training and Performance: Human Kinetics Townsend, J. S. (2000), Assessing Students Outcomes in Sport Education: A Pedagogical Approach: AAHPERD Steve Stork (2007) Assessing Gymnastics in Elementary School Physical Education AAHPERD Van Den Bosch and Paul (2007), Ironman made easy, Oxford: Meyer & Meyer Sport Dr. Ravindra Pal (2009), athletics - Skills & Rules: Khel Sahitya Kendra (K.S.K) Dr. M.L. Kamlesh(2009),UGC Net Digest on Paper II — Physical Education (An Objective Perspective): Khel Sahitya Kendra (K.S.K) Sheela Kumari (2009), A Practical Workbook for Fitness, Aerobics and Gym Operations: Khel Sahitya Kendra (K.S.K) David Kirk (2000), Handbook of Physical Education: Sage Publications Ltd  David Morton advanced (2000) Physical Education through Diagrams: Oxford University Press Acalyn Lea Lund (2000) Creating Rubrics for Physical Education: National Association for Sport & Physical Edu; Booklet edition Leslie T. Lambert Amer (2000) Standards-Based Assessment of Student Learning: A Comprehensive Approach Alliance for Health Physical David Whitbread (2000) The Psychology of Teaching and Learning in The Primary School: Routledge Falmer Isobel Kleinman (2001), Complete Physical Education Plans for Grades 7-12: 366 Lesson Plans for 14 Sports and Activities: Human Kinetics Crossman (2001), Coping with Sports injuries: Psychological Strategies for Rehabilitation New York: Oxford University Press Sharpe, Lounsbery, Golden, & Deibler (1999). Analysis of district wide collaborative approach to teacher education. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 19(1), 79-96. Ward, & Doutis (1999), Toward a consolidation of the knowledge base for reform in physical education. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 18(4), 382-402. Woods, Karp & Escamilla (2000), Pre-service teachers learning about students and the teaching-learning process. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 20(1), 15-39. Wray (2007), community, Teaching portfolios and pre-service teachers' professional development. Teaching and Teacher Education: An International Journal of Research and Studies, 23(7), 1139-1152. Xiang, Lowy & McBride (2002). The impact of a field-based elementary physical education methods course on pre-service classroom teachers' beliefs. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 21(2), 145-161. Read More