The study investigated two main questions: the first focused on the factors that enabled and constrained student teachers' engagement of a socially critical pedagogy in physical education teacher education (PETE); the second centered on gaining insight into the usefulness of knowledgeability as a concept for analysing student teachers engagement of a socially critical pedagogy. At the time of writing this thesis empirical analyses of socially critical pedagogies in physical education were rare in the educational literature. The study provided an alternative way of analysing student teachers’ engagement of a socially critical pedagogy in PETE. Alternative in that it avoided recycling and reproducing the dualism between agency and structure (Aronowitz and Giroux, 1985) that is prevalent in much of the physical education literature. Conversational interviews were conducted with four student teachers and their teacher educators throughout the duration of a one-semester PETE unit in an Australian university. Observations were made of the lecture and practical sessions and a document analysis was conducted of all unit learning resources. The analytical frame used in the study was structuration theory (Giddens, 1979, 1984). This framework was useful because it gave primacy to the duality of structure which recognised ‘the structural properties of social systems are both the medium and outcome of practices that constitute those systems’ (Giddens, 1979, p.69). The pedagogical intentions of the teacher educator co-ordinating the PETE unit were to change the orientations of the student teachers towards primary school physical education by encouraging them to adopt different ‘lenses’ through which to examine pedagogical practices. These ‘lenses’ highlighted the questions central to those with socio-critical intentions, eg. power, social injustice and diversity. Data generated from conversations with, and observations of, the student teachers, indicated that the actualisation of the teacher educator's intentions were somewhat limited. Despite this, adopting structuration theory as the explanatory framework for the study proved generative at a number of levels. Broadly, structuration theory was useful because it highlighted the way that student teachers' engagement with a socially critical pedagogy is contingent upon particular (idiosyncratic) dialectics of agency and structure. Using the duality of structure as an analytical tool illustrated the way student teachers' were influenced by structural factors as well as the way these structural factors were in turn constituted by the action of the student teachers. Also, by utilising structuration theory as an explanatory framework, the concept of knowledgeability was identified as a useful concept for analysing student teachers' engagement with a socially critical pedagogy in PETE. What is more, the study highlighted the reflexivity of the self and social knowledge, both characteristics of late modernity, as being integral to the way the student teachers engaged with the socially critical pedagogy of EAE400. Not only did the study highlight the reflexivity of the self but it also provided insight into the reflexivity of social knowledge. Much of the socially critical work in physical education implicitly adopts a linear approach to change. Given the findings of the study it might be useful for future developments to consider change as circular. The thesis concludes by suggesting that given the reflexivity of social knowledge, socially critical perspectives might be more readily engaged if the PETE content was incorporated into student teachers existing knowledge frameworks rather than viewed as a replacement for such frameworks.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-11, Section: A, page: 4295. Adviser: Kim C. Graber. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 146-161) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Students benefit from positive sport experiences in physical education. If designed well, sport provides a social avenue for physical activity and strengthens student achievement in psychomotor (e.g., motor skill), cognitive (e.g., decision-making), and affective (e.g., personal and social responsibility) learning domains. Unfortunately, not all students receive quality sport instruction and many students fail to have positive sport experiences in physical education. The Tactical Games Model (TGM, Griffin, Mitchell, & Oslin, 1997) is an instructional model focused on improving student sport experiences. As a constructivist approach to teaching and learning sport, TGM reshapes sport lessons to allow students to experience small-sided games (Game 1), think critically about games playing (Q & A), practice aspects of playing (Situated Practice), and show improvement in games playing (Game 2). TGM literature includes practitioner reports about involvement (Berkowitz, 1996) and findings that show measures of game performance (e.g., skill execution, decision-making) during a TGM sport unit (Allison & Thorpe, 1997; Turner & Martinek, 1999). Limited data is available to explain how the constructivist nature of TGM influences motivation (Griffin & Patton, 2005; Rink, 2001). The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine motivation using situational interest theory (Chen, Darst, & Pangrazi, 1999; Mitchell, 1993) to interpret participant – learning situation (Game 1, Q & A, Practice, and Game 2) experiences during an eight-day TGM Ultimate Frisbee unit. The researcher acted as teacher-researcher and participants were 15 fifth graders (assigned to heterogeneous teams) and Mia, the regular physical education teacher and participant-observer. Data were collected using surveys, learning situation questionnaires, interviews, and systematic observations using the Game Performance Assessment Instrument (GPAI, Oslin, Mitchell, & Griffin, 1998). Data analysis incorporated open and axial coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), theoretical comparisons (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), and concept mapping (Rossman & Rallis, 2003). Findings show that participants': (a) participated in daily lessons regardless of gender, goal orientation, skill/effort level, and personal interest in Ultimate, (b) were excited to play games (Game 1, Game 2) because they wanted to move, liked Ultimate, and/or wanted to assess skills/playing, (c) required challenging conditions, positive competition, and/or individual/team success in order to have a positive participant-games playing experience, (d) entered Q & A and Practice expecting to learn something new, (e) stayed interested in Q & A if they received answers, learned facts/rules, and/or felt the discussion helped team, (f) remained involved in Practice if team worked well, task was fun, and/or they learned skill/strategy, and (g) perceived improvements in games playing (e.g., throwing). Mia concluded that participants: (a) were motivated to play, (b) were involved in the different learning situations, and (c) improved games playing during the unit. GPAI scores confirmed that participants improved at least one area of game performance (e.g., skill execution-passing) between Day 3 (week 1) and Day 7 (week 2).

This study addressed two questions: (a) In what ways do elementary school teachers describe the interaction of their personal lives and teaching careers over time, and (b) what aspects of their job structure do elementary school teachers identify as affecting their personal-life/career interactions. Eighteen experienced elementary school teachers (a physical education specialist, a specialist from another subject area, and a classroom teacher from each of six different schools) participated in two sixty-minute interviews. To aid in reflection, participants completed two graphic assignments (a "rainbow" of life roles and a teaching timeline) prior to the initial interview. In the first session, they were asked to tell the stories of their lives and careers. During the second interview, they were asked to respond to a series of open-ended questions, designed to clarify and extend information from the first interview. Audio-tapes of the interviews were transcribed, the data were unitized, and categories were developed to reflect the content of each unit. Using the categories, themes were identified which displayed aspects of life/career interaction which were shared by all teachers, which differentiated among the three groups of teachers, or which were unique to particular groups. The most salient personal-life/career interaction themes drawn from all teachers included: (a) work spillover, (b) limited financial resources, (c) increased understanding of children through parenting, (d) changes in teaching due to personal growth, (e) valuing time with family, and (f) job security. Themes common to all specialists included: (a) career choice based on attraction to subject matter as well as to teaching, (b) valuing the opportunities to teach all students in the school and to teach each student over the course of several years, (c) frustration with class scheduling, and (d) lack of collegial respect for their educational contributions. Physical educators were also frustrated by physical elements such as weather and facilities, as well by having to cope with the poor teaching of colleagues. Themes unique to classroom teachers included (a) pressure to produce good test scores, (b) frustration with short-lived educational reforms, and (c) the large amounts of time spent grading papers. These data offer new perspectives on elementary school teaching and provide support for specific changes in preservice education, inservice education, and elementary school structure.

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the effects of multimedia CAI on undergraduate PETE majors' teaching of the serve in tennis. The data were obtained from 18 undergraduate students enrolled in a PETE evaluation and assessment course at Virginia Tech. Subjects were stratified by gender and randomly assigned to three groups as Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) group (n=6), Teacher Instruction (TI) group (n=6), and Control (CG) group (n=6). The results of this study were gathered from three tests: Tennis Serve Content Knowledge Test, Tennis Serve Skill Analysis Test, Tennis Task Sequence Test. In addition, two six minutes micro teaching sessions were conducted and data was collected via Tennis Serve Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) Assessment Sheet, and finally, an open ended survey was completed to understand students' attitudes toward CAI. There are two independent variables in this study. These are Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) and Teacher Instruction (TI). A pre-test and post-test experimental design was applied. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to determine the differences among the three groups, and pairwise ranking with the Mann Whitney U test was conducted between all comparisons as a post hoc analysis. Moreover, the Wilcoxon Signed Rank test was used to determine pre-to post-test changes within the groups. Alpha set at p< 0.5. Overall, teacher instruction (TI) intervention was very dominant in the results. Teacher instruction (TI) group performed significantly in the tennis serve content knowledge test, tennis serve task analysis test, PCK-Appropriate cues, and PCK-Appropriate demonstration. However, CAI group was also successful in the tennis serve content knowledge test and PCK-Appropriate demonstration. Interestingly, none of the groups were successful in the tennis serve skill analysis test and PCK-Appropriate feedback. Finally, students' perception toward CAI was positive in general and students indicated that they would like to use CAI in other PETE method courses. However, some of the students reported that CAI was very repetitive, and also technical problems were reported. The results of this study indicated that CAI can be an effective way of instruction in certain conditions: CAI had significant effect on content knowledge and PCK-Appropriate demonstration. In conclusion, the 21st century will be an information age and computers will be an essential part of the education system in all grades and ages. Physical education teacher education programs and physical education lessons in K-12 education are no exceptions. Computers and instructional technology should be an integral part of PETE and K-12 physical education without sacrificing the physical activity. / Ph. D.

En stor del av den forskning som görs på idrottslärare utgår ifrån styrdokumenten (t ex Ekberg, 2009; Londos, 2010; Svennberg m fl, 2017). Idrottslärarnas utsagor och praktik sätts i jämförelse med de tolkningar som forskarna gör av styrdokumenten och visar ofta att idrottslärarna gör ”fel”. Forskarnas tolkningar av styrdokumenten kan ses som ett facit och eventuella avsteg från dem anses vara problematiskt. I denna uppsats undersöks idrottslärarnas yrkesutövande från ett annat perspektiv än det som till stor del finns i tidigare forskning. Syftet med denna studie är därmed att skapa en förståelse för idrottslärarens yrkesroll byggd på deras egna berättelser om sin vardag och hur de hanterar den.Empiriinsamling har skett genom djupintervjuer med idrottslärare, där intervjuguiden skapats med hjälp av Michael Lipskys (2010) teori om gräsrotsbyråkrater och Yeheskel Hasenfelds (2010) teori om service-organisationer. Idrottslärarnas utsagor har sedan analyserats utifrån dessa teorier.Resultatet visar att idrottslärarna tar sig tre olika roller; problemlösaren, trygghetsskaparen samt organisatören. I rollen som problemlösare arbetar idrottslärarna dels med problem som uppstår här och nu, t ex oväntade situationer som uppstår i mötet med elever och som måste lösas, och dels med mer långsiktiga problem. Rollen som trygghetsskapare behövs då idrottsämnets synlighet enligt idrottslärarna kräver trygghet hos eleverna för att de ska kunna prestera inför varandra. För att skapa trygghet arbetar idrottslärarna bland annat med att försöka se varje elev, anpassa aktiviteter så att det passar den specifika gruppen och skapa rörelseglädje. För att klara av att anpassa undervisningen i enlighet med rollerna som problemlösare och trygghetsskapare krävs att idrottslärarna är organisatörer. Detta då de måste planera lektionerna för att nå alternativa mål (t ex trygghet, ha roligt och att hitta en aktivitet att utöva på fritiden) och organisera undervisningen med utgångspunkt i för få resurser, men också för att se varje elev. Bilden av idrottsläraren som problemlösare, trygghetsskapare och organisatör stämmer troligtvis inte med bilden av hur en idrottslärare bör vara. Men om idrottslärarrollen ser ut såhär, hur ska den framtida idrottsundervisningen i Sverige se ut? Kanske måste kraven och förväntningarna på ämnet idrott och hälsa och på dess lärare förändras i grunden för att på så sätt mötas halvvägs med denna studies tre rollbeskrivningar av idrottsläraren. / A large part of the research done on physical education (PE) teachers is based on the curriculum (eg Ekberg, 2009; Svennberg et al., 2017). The teachers' statements and practice are compared with the interpretations made by the researchers in the curriculum. This comparison often shows that teachers do "wrong". The researchers' interpretations of the curriculum can be seen as a solution and any deviation from them is considered to be problematic. In this paper, the PE teachers' professional exercise is examined from a different perspective than is largely found in previous research. The purpose of this study is thus to create an understanding of the PE teacher's professional role based on their own stories about their everyday lives and how they handle it.Empirical gathering has been done through deep interviews with PE teachers, where the interview guide was created using Michael Lipsky's (2010) theory of street level bureaucrats and Yeheskel Hasenfeld's (2010) theory of human service organizations. The teachers' statements have since been analyzed based on these theo-ries.The result shows that the PE teachers take three different roles - problem solver, confident creator and organizer. In the role of the problem solver, PE teachers work partly with problems that occur here and now, such as unexpected situations that arise in the en-counter with students, which must be solved, and partly with long term problems. The role of the confident creator is needed when the visibility of PE according to the PE teachers requires comfort of the students in order to be able to perform in front of each other. In order to create confident, PE teachers are working with, among other things, trying to see each student, adapt activities to suit the specific group and create a sense of joy. In order to be able to adapt the teaching according to the role of the problem solver and the confident creator, the PE teachers are required to be organizers. This is when they have to plan the lessons to reach alternative goals (eg comfort, having fun, finding an activity in the free time) and organizing the teaching based on too few resources, but also to see each student.The image of the PE teacher as problem solver, confident creator and organizer probably does not match the picture of how a PE teacher should be. But if the PE teacher role looks like this, what will future PE education in Sweden look like? Perhaps the requirements and expectations of the subject of physical education and health and its teachers must fundamentally change to meet halfway through this study's three role descriptions of the PE teacher.

The purpose of this study was to describe, from their perspectives, the experiences of lesbian physical education teachers who work in the public schools and the meanings they made of their experiences. The participants were elementary and secondary school physical educators who identified themselves as lesbians. Twelve teachers were interviewed using an in-depth phenomenological approach. The teachers interviewed were women of various ages, races, and social class backgrounds who taught in rural, urban, and suburban schools. The interview materials were presented in two ways: individual profiles of eight participants and common themes. Several key points from the data emerged. First, the participants made two assumptions about being a lesbian physical educator: (a) as a lesbian, you will lose your job if you are open about your sexual orientation, and (b) female physical educators are stereotyped as being lesbians. Second, the participants actively attempted to separate their personal and professional lives. Third, the participants used a variety of strategies to manage their lesbian identities within school settings. These strategies were used both to conceal and reveal their sexual orientation. Living in two worlds was an accepted reality for the lesbian physical educators in this study. A conceptual model outlining the process by which the participants made decisions about managing their identities as lesbian physical educators was presented. Feminism and oppression theory were used to discuss the participants' experiences. The participants' descriptions revealed the prevalence of homophobia and heterosexism within physical education environments. The lesbian label was specifically used to intimidate or harass women in physical education. The homophobia and heterosexism the participants encountered in their worlds kept them silent, isolated, fearful of discovery, and powerless. Consequently, the participants in this study did not share a collective identity as a subordinate or oppressed group. Developing a collective identity was described as a critical next step in changing the conditions of their oppression as lesbian physical educators.

One of the important characteristics of effective teaching is to devote sufficient time to appropriate physical activity in physical education classes. The purpose of this study was to compare teaching effectiveness of prospective and in-service teachers in relation to student behaviors, course content activities and Academic Learning Time in Physical Education (ALT-PE) scores. Participants were 26 prospective and 28 in-service physical education teachers. Forty-minute regular lessons (n=54) of each teacher were video recorded in their natural settings and observed with the ALT-PE observational instrument. Learner involvement behaviors, context levels and ALT-PE scores were compared for two groups of teachers. MANOVA results have shown significant differences in student behaviors and course content activities between the groups. While prospective teachers spent significantly more time with management content, in-service teachers spent significantly more time with warm-up activities. Students in the classes of prospective teachers spent significantly more time with off-task and interim behaviors, but students in the classes of in-service teachers spent significantly more time with on task behaviors. The results, however, indicated no significant differences between the groups in motor appropriate behaviors of students. ANOVA results indicated that students spent 17.9% (for prospective teachers), and 18.7% (for in-service teachers) of total class time with ALT-PE behaviors. It seems fair to suggest that prospective and in-service PE teachers should decrease the time on management, transition, waiting, and theoretical explanations, while allocating more time on physical activity.

Friluftsliv blir ett allt större ämne i skolan i Sverige. Det är ett ämne som ska uppta en tredjedel av ämnet Idrott och Hälsa enligt läroplanen. I denna kvantitativa undersökning har det framkommit att de flesta idrottslärare anser att de har tillräckligt med materiella resurser för att undervisa i friluftsliv. Dock gäller inte detta när det kommer till elevernas material hemifrån. Lärarna känner att de har tillräckligt med kunskap för att undervisa i ämnet och de flesta anser att de inom närområdet till sin skola har möjlighet att undervisa i friluftsliv. När det kommer till hur skolan och kollegorna jobbar med eller emot lärarna så svarade en liten majoritet att de ansåg att skolorna jobbar för att de som idrottslärare ska lyckas med vad som står i läroplanen angående friluftsliv. När det kom till om kollegor var med vid planering och genomförandet utav idrottsaktiviteter anser de flesta respondenterna att de får hjälp av sina kollegor när det kommer till planering och genomförande av friluftsaktiviteter. / Outdoor education is becoming an increasingly larger subject in Swedish schools.  It makes up about a third of the curriculum in Physical education. In this quantitative study, the result shows that physical education teachers believe they have enough material resources to teach in outdoor education. However, this not applies to the students and the material they bring from home. The teachers feel that they have enough knowledge about outdoor education to teach in the subject and most considers that they have an area close to the school there they have opportunity to teach outdoor education. When it comes to how the school and colleagues are working with or against the physical education teachers, the teachers responded that a small majority of the schools work together with success regarding the curriculums in outdoor education. When it comes to how involved their colleagues are in planning and implementing outdoor activates the majority answered that they receive help from their colleagues.

This thesis represents a part of a program of study that is reaching a closure. The broadest brush that could be applied to my work is that it concerns Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE), that it focuses on aspects of professional socialisation, and that it involves various case studies utilising naturalistic inquiry. Whilst it would be impossible and naive to believe that the reading of these texts will produce the meanings that I encourage, or have internalised, nevertheless the order of reading is at least something that I can argue for. Read in the order I suggest throughout the thesis I am hopeful that my subjectivities, and the learning and understandings I have reached may become clear. The purpose of this two part thesis is an exploration of the interplay or dialectic that exists between PETE students, academic staff and the subject matter within PETE. I have had to come to understand the limitations and advantages of insider research as the work has been completed at my University in the School of Human Movement and Sports Science where I have worked for twenty years. This thesis examines the extent to which studentship and oppositional behaviour underlies the dialectic that exists between the students and the various discourses within the program. I have written the study in two very different formats, one, a collection of stories about PETE and the other, an interpretative case study conducted during 1993 and 1994. Within the case study, studentship and oppositional behaviour were viewed as a measure of the extent to which students react and push against the forces of socialisation within their PETE program that is seen to represent dominant discourses, The following broad research questions were considered to enable the above analysis. 1. What is the nature of studentship and oppositional behaviour in a high status subject within PETE compared to a subject that is seen by students to be of little relevance and of low status? 2. How are studentship and oppositional behaviour related to students subjective warrants? 3. How are the studentship and oppositional behaviours exhibited by students related to the pedagogy and discourses reflected in the knowledge, beliefs and practices within the two sites. The starting point for this research was a study conducted as a totally separate research task (Swan, 1992) that investigated the hierarchies of subject knowledge within a PETE site and investigated the influence of such hierarchies upon student intention. A great deal of meta analysis exists about the manner in which a technocratic rationality pervades PETE but very little case study material of what this means to students and academic staff within such institutions is available. The stories in Between The Rings And Under The Gym Mat, which is the second part of this thesis, represent ‘the data’ differently from the case study, but they speak their own truth. At times the nature of the story is indistinguishable from the reality of the case study. Wexler (1992) undertook an ethnographic study about identity formation in three very different high schools, and published the findings in a book entitled Becoming Somebody. His introductory words about the nature of the social story he tells, are significant to this study and story. Social history is recounted by creative intervention that can only be made from culturally accessible materials. Ethnography is neither an objective realist, nor subjective imaginist account. Rather, it is an historical artefact that is mediated by elaborated distancing of culturally embedded and internally contradictory (but seemingly independent and coherent) concepts that take on a life of their own as theory. So, this is not ‘news from nowhere,’ but a theoretically structured story where both the story and its structure are part of my times. (p.6) The case study before you is organised with an analysis of studentship and oppositional behaviour detailed in chapter one. The following chapter conceptualises studentship and oppositional behaviour in relation to particular themes of professional socialisation, resistance to oppression and youth culture. Chapter three locates the case study to the major paradigmatic debates about the value and nature of the subject matter content within PETE, Chapter four outlines the case site, the research process and the research dilemma’s confronted in this study. The remaining three chapters are the case record as I can best understand it. In Between the Rings and under the Gym Mat (part B) the story most directly concerned with studentship and oppositional behaviour, is called Tale of Two Classes’. It takes on a very different reality to the case study (part A) and much can be said about the reality of lived experience which can be portrayed in narrative form as opposed to a clinical case study. Many of the other stories pose similar images that are contradictory and never quite complete. I have written a separate methodological section for the narrative stories. It is my intention that the case study and the series of stories should be viewed as essentially complementary, but also a discrete representation of a part of PETE. As part of the Ed D program I have undertaken four discrete research tasks as the starting point for this research I have referred to the first one (Hierarchies of Subject knowledge within PETE). I also undertook an action research project about ‘Teaching Poorly by Choice.’ A further piece of research was a somewhat reflective effort to draw together what this has all meant to me from a subjective and reflexive perspective. Such efforts are often seen as being self indulgent, as subjectivity in the form of lived experience sits uneasily in academia. A final paper involved an evaluation of Between the Rings and Under the Gym Mat from a pedagogical perspective by PETE professionals around the world. And that's the way things turned out.