This study focused on the recruitment phase of teacher socialization, particularly the perspectives high school students, who wish to become physical education teachers, have on the teacher role. The participants were 10 high school students interested in becoming physical education teachers. They were white and attended rural or urban high schools. Four interviews were used to collect the participants' perspectives on physical education teaching: two semi-structured, open-ended interviews, a role play and a series of vignettes. The interview data were presented in three categories: biographical information, career choices and perspectives on teaching. The opportunity to work with young people and to continue their involvement in sports were two primary factors attracting the participants to careers in physical education teaching and athletic coaching. Overall, the participants preferred coaching after-school sports to teaching physical education because they believed coaching received more positive recognition and provided more opportunities to remain in competitive sports. The participant group held three primary assumptions about physical education. First, they believed that physical education accommodates athletics. Second, they assumed that the goal of physical education was to have fun. Third, the participant group believed that everyone can perform sport skills successfully with little or no instruction. Several key points from the data emerged. First, the participants regarded physical education teaching as a career contingency for coaching. Second, they viewed compulsory physical education as problematic. Third, the participants believed in a custodial approach to class management. Four, they described a multi-activity model to curriculum which would only require a limited degree of lesson planning. Finally, they regarded student learning as student participation and would reward active student participation with high grades. These perspectives on teaching support the argument that prospective teachers enter teacher training with detailed ideas about the teacher role. The information gleaned from the recruitment phase of teacher socialization must be used to inform the content of teacher preparation programs and guide the research on the teacher role.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-7805 |
| Date | 01 January 1990 |
| Creators | Hutchinson, Gayle E |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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