Urban School Physical Education Directors Perceptions of Physical Education

1
Urban School Physical Education Directors
Perceptions of Physical Education

• Howard Zeng1, Wenhao Liu2 Michael Hipscher1
• 1Brooklyn College, CUNY, Brooklyn, NY.
• 2Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, PA.

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Introduction and Background

• For over two decades, researchers have realized
  and emphasized that physical education (PE) plays
  a vital role in our school education (Sallis,
  McKenzie, 1991 Sallis, McKenzie, Alcaraz,
  1993 U.S. DHHS, 2004 Zoeller, 2007).

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Introduction and Background (cont. 1)

• Participation in regular physical activity (PA)
  effectively reduces the risk of premature
  mortality, coronary heart disease, hypertension,
  colon cancer, and diabetes (Coakley, 2004
  Warburton, Nicol, Bredin, 2006 Zoeller, 2007).

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Introduction and Background (cont. 2)

• Physical education plays such important role in
  our society as health costs are at all time high
  and people are living longer.
• Recently research reveals that physical
  inactivity and obesity remain more stable than
  physical activity from childhood to adulthood
  (Anderssen, Wold, Torsheim, 2005 Janz, Burns,
  Levy, 2005 Matton et al., 2005 Raitakari,
  Juonala, Viikari, 2005 Yang et al., 2007).

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Introduction and Background (cont. 3)

• That is, compared with physically active
  lifestyles during childhood, sedentary lifestyles
  adopted early in life tend to track into
  adulthood at a higher rate.
• The finding helps explain the well known facts
  that physical activity levels decline from
  childhood to adulthood and that more than half
  (54.1) of adults do not engage in physical
  activity at the minimum recommended level (Center
  for Disease Control and Prevention CDC, 2005).

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Introduction and Background (cont. 4)

• As a result, the goal of public health is to get
  physically active children remain physically
  active through adulthood and, more importantly,
  to get sedentary children untracked and become
  physically active (Corbin, 2001 Malina, 2001b).
• In fact, the promotion of lifelong physical
  activity participation has been recognized as the
  ultimate goal of school physical education
  programs (Rink, 2006), and physical activity
  ranks top in the ten Leading Health Indicators
  (USDHHS, 2000).

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Introduction and Background (cont. 5)

• More ideas and suggestions have been made by the
  researchers such as
• using interdisciplinary instructive approach
  incorporates literacy, math, geography and
  science into PE lessons,
• developing a science-base curriculum
• applying different technology to provide visual,
  kinesthetic and auditory stimuli in daily
  lessons and
• using various teaching strategies to meet the
  needs of diverse learners (Graham, Holt/Hale,
  Parker, 2005 Pangrazi, 2007).

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Introduction and Background (cont. 6)

• However, no matter how the researchers, educators
  and media describe and discuss the issues and
  solutions about school PE, the bottom line is,
  the director of PE programs are the key figures
  to make decisions on how PE will be operated in
  their schools.
• In school reform discussion, the role of director
  of PE programs have consistently identified as a
  critical contributing factor to school PE
  effectiveness and to reform implementation
  success (Fullan, 2001 Graham, Holt/Hale,
  Parker, 2008 Pangrazi, 2007 ).

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Purpose

• While many studies have been done to investigate
  Issues or problems and solutions regarding school
  PE programs, few studies, if any, have tried to
  understand urban school PE from the perspectives
  of PE program directors (PEPD).

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Purpose (Cont.)

• This study was intended to investigate PEPD's
  perceptions of urban school PE programs so that
  more comprehensive understanding of PE programs
  might be ascertained.

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Methods

• Participants in this study were 17 PEPD from a
  large city in the US (5 from elementary schools,
  12 from secondary schools) with a minimum of
  two-year experience in the PEPD position.

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Methods (Cont. 1)

• The Elite interview (Hertz Imber, 1995) was
  used with semi structured questions regarding
  concerns, problems, and solutions for urban PE
  programs.

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Methods (Cont. 2)

• All interviews were audiotape and transcribed and
  a detailed audit trail was used for establishing
  trustworthiness. Constant comparison technique
  (Patton, 2002) was used for data analysis.

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Analysis/Results

• Three major themes were revealed.
• First, the importance of PE programs in urban
  school districts was confirmed. The PE programs
  played an important role in providing a big
  portion of daily physical activity amount for
  urban kids and in developing healthy, whole
  persons, and was an integral part of the urban
  education system.

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Analysis/Results (cont. 1)

• Second, the major problems with the urban school
  PE programs were the lack of administrative
  support, shortage of facilities and equipment,
  apathetic and unqualified PE teachers, oversize
  classes, and lack of students motivation.

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Analysis/Results (cont. 2)

• In addition, a higher prevalence of obesity among
  urban school kids than those in rural and
  suburban areas is a serious concern.

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Analysis/Results (cont. 3)

• Third, the urban school PEPD recommend the
  following solutions to solving the problems
  writing grants and raising funds for updating PE
  equipment and facilities using community
  resources to implement PE programs

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Analysis/Results (cont. 4)

• seeking parental involvement and political
  support building new schools requiring more PE
  days/weeks increasing the salaries of PE
  teachers raising the bar for accreditation, and
  hiring of new certified PE teachers.

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Conclusions

• Perceptions of the PEPD on urban school PE
  reflect problems that urban school PE faces.
  Whereas the problems are comprehensive, the urban
  PEPD recognize the important roles that PE plays
  and are clear regarding the ways to solve those
  problems.

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Conclusions (cont.)

• However, to reform the quality of urban school PE
  is beyond the current capabilities of PEPD. Given
  the higher prevalence of obesity among urban
  school districts, decision makers at higher
  levels should take steps to solve problems that
  urban PE programs face.

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Selected References

• Blair, S. N. Church, T. S. (2004). The Fitness,
  Obesity, and Health Equation Is Physical
  Activity the Common Denominator? The Journal of
  the American Medical Association, Circulation,
  292, 1232-1234.
• Centers for Disease Control (CDC) (2004). School
  Health Index A Self-Assessment and Planning
  Guide. Middle school/high school version.
  Atlanta, Georgia U.S. Department of Health and
  Human Services, CDC, 2004.
• Coakley, J. (2004). Sports in society Issues and
  controversies (8th ed.). McGraw Hill New York.
• Graham, G., Holt/Hale, S. A. and Parker, M.
  (2008). Children moving A reflective approach to
  teaching physical education (8th Ed.). Mountain
  View, CA Mayfield.
• Olafson, L. (2002). "I hate phys. ed."
  Adolescent girls talk about physical education.
  The Physical Educator, Spring, 67-74.
• Pangrazi, R. P. (2007). Dynamic physical
  education for elementary school children (15th
  ed.). San Francisco, CA Benjamin Cummings.
• Sallis, J., McKenzie, T. L. (1991). Physical
  education's role in public health. Research
  Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 62, 124-137.
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
  (U.S. DHHS, 2000). Physical activity and health
  A report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta, GA
  U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
  National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention
  and Health Promotion.
• Warburton, D.E., Nicol, C., Bredin, S.S.
  (2006). Health benefits of physical activity the
  evidence. Canadian Medical Association Journal
  (CMAJ), 174, 801-9.
• Zoeller, R. F. (2007). Physical Activity and
  Obesity Their Interaction and Implications for
  Disease Risk and the Role of Physical Activity in
  Healthy Weight Management. The Journal of the
  American Medical Association, 1, 437-446.