Peter R. Whipp

Experienced Physical Education Teachers Reaching Their “Use-by Date”: Powerless and Disrespected

With the needs of experienced teachers potentially overshadowed by a focus on recruitment, the purpose of this study was to retrospectively explore the reasons why three experienced physical education teachers resigned. They were interviewed through Louis and Smiths (1990) quality of work life (QWL) model. Data suggested shared dissatisfactions related to the lack of “genuine” opportunities to participate in educational debate and decision making, and limited professional respect shown by administrators and parents. A physical education teachers “use-by date” was proposed. Unless these issues are further explored and addressed, quality teachers will continue to abandon the service.

Validating the Youth Sport Enjoyment Construct in High School Physical Education

The present study was undertaken to develop and validate a questionnaire measuring teaching processes related to physical education (PE) enjoyment. Scanlan and Lewthwaites (1986) youth sport enjoyment model provided the theoretical foundation for this work. Content validity and item readability of the instrument were established by obtaining feedback from eight experts in psychology and four highly experienced secondary school teachers. Construct validity was then established by conducting exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on data from 304 secondary school students (grades 8, 9, and 10). As a result of these analyses, six teaching processes related to PE enjoyment were identified: self-referent competency (four items), other-referent competency (four items), teacher-generated excitement (three items), activity-generated excitement (five items), peer interaction (two items), and parental encouragement (two items). Correlation analyses revealed that all of these processes were positively correlated with PE enjoyment. The weakest correlation was between peer interaction and enjoyment (r = .31, p < .05), and the strongest was between activity-generated excitement and enjoyment (r = .83, p < .05). We believe that the instrument is appropriate for studying affective outcomes within physical educational settings among students in grades 8, 9, and 10.

Physical education teachers in motion: an account of attrition and area transfer

Background: Teacher turnover has been identified as a major problem that represents instability in teaching. Teacher turnover can be divided into three components: attrition means that the teacher is leaving the profession; area transfer means that the teacher is changing his/her subject area and migration means that the teacher is moving from one school to another. The single most important concern is teacher attrition. Attrition is particularly high among teachers in their first five years of service. Although extensive research has been carried out on teacher attrition, no single study exists which comprehensively analyses the attrition of physical education (PE) teachers. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to establish the attrition and area transfer rates of PE teachers in Finland. This paper also focuses on the reasons behind why PE teachers are leaving the profession. Key findings: A total of 230 (23%) of 994 PE teachers who graduated between the years 1980 and 2006 moved out of PE teaching. Of the 23%, the attrition rate was 13% and the area transfer rate was 10%. The reasons for leaving the profession could be divided into six different categories: pupils, administration, working conditions, colleagues, respect and rewards and workload. Those who moved outside of schools (i.e. leavers) were mainly younger teachers, while those who changed from PE to another subject area (i.e. movers) were mainly older teachers. It was also found that men left earlier than women and leavers earlier than movers.

Comparison of serve and serve return statistics of high performance male and female tennis players from different age-groups

The serve and the serve return performance of professional, high performance Under-16 and high performance Under-12 male and female players was examined. Collectively, the players served approximately 60% of their first serves in. A significant gender by player group interaction was found for serving aces. Male professionals served significantly more aces than the Under-16 and Under-12 male players (p < .001) and female professional players (p < .004). Female professional players served more aces than the Under-12 female players (p < .003). Independent of gender, player group differences were noted with professionals serving significantly fewer double faults, winning a significantly greater percentage of points on first serve, and winning significantly more points on second serve return than the Under-16 and Under-12 groups (p < .001). The professionals also won a significantly higher percentage of points on second serve return than first serve return (p < .004). However, the male professionals won significantly fewer points on first serve return compared to all other groups (p < .001). The findings point to both age-group and gender differences in the way that the serve and serve return are used in matchplay. Coaches should be aware of these differences and structure their players training accordingly.

Career intentions of Australian physical education teachers

The purpose of this study was to investigate Australian physical education (PE) teachers’ career intentions and factors influencing their intentions. A sample (N = 234) of Western Australian PE teachers responded to a questionnaire determining PE teachers’ work and the primary motivators for intention to leave the profession. Half (51.3%) of the respondents wanted a change from their current PE teacher job and 39.8% were intending to leave PE teaching. The most frequent reasons for wanting to leave PE related to: non-use of expertise, workload, school administration, and lack of opportunities for personal and professional development. Consideration should be given to mediation strategies that serve to elevate physical educators’ needs satisfaction for teaching autonomy, competence and relatedness. Personal and professional advancement in schools to help maintain all teachers, particularly experienced teachers, appears warranted. PE teachers’ workload is considerable and worthy of review with the intention to extend their use-by-date and retain their experience-enriched expertise.

Relatedness Support and the Retention of Young Female Golfers

In this study, self-determination theory was used as a guiding framework to understand the putative role of relatedness support for retention in golf among young females. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with 10 female participants (Mage = 21.40, SD = 3.13). Content analyses revealed 5 distinct factors that contributed to the provision of relatedness support: Parents, Peers, Coaches, Golf Club, and Institutional and Societal Support. Findings highlighted that retention of female golfers may be facilitated through promoting valued relationships with parents, peers, coaches, and golf clubs. Policies that decrease the perceived marginalization of female participants may also be perceived as a form of relatedness support and may promote retention within this cohort. This study underscores the importance of relatedness support for young women and identifies strategies that may help to improve female retention in sport.

Relational perceptions in high school physical education: teacher- and peer-related predictors of female students’ motivation, behavioral engagement, and social anxiety

Although researchers have demonstrated the importance of interpersonal processes in school-based physical education (PE), there have been calls for further studies that account for multiple relational perspectives and provide a more holistic understanding of students’ relational perceptions. Guided by principles outlined within self-determination theory and the tripartite efficacy model, our aim was to explore the ways in which students’ perceptions about their teacher and classmates directly and/or indirectly predicted motivation, anxiety, and engagement in PE. A total of 374 female high-school students reported the extent to which their teachers and classmates independently (a) engaged in relatedness-supportive behaviors, (b) satisfied their need for relatedness, and (c) were confident in their ability in PE (i.e., relation-inferred self-efficacy). Students also rated their motivation and anxiety regarding PE, and teachers provided ratings of in-class behavioral engagement for each student. Analyses demonstrated support for the predictive properties of both teacher- and peer-focused perceptions. Students largely reported more positive motivational orientations when they held favorable perceptions regarding their teacher and peers, and autonomous motivation was in turn positively related to behavioral engagement ratings. These findings offer novel insight into the network of interpersonal appraisals that directly and indirectly underpins important in-class outcomes in PE.

A comparative analysis of the spatial distributions of the serve return

The execution of the serve return is of particular importance given the increasing serve speeds that characterise modern tennis. The spatial distributions of the serve return at the professional level and between two age groups of high performance players (i.e., Under-16 and Under-12) were analysed to determine whether the location of a serve-return was independent of or related to, the gender of the player. Chi-square analysis revealed significant differences in the distribution of first serve-return across the three serve-return locations to wide serves between the male and female Under-16 players (p< .001) and between the male and female Under-12 players (p< .001). When only points won by the returner were considered, no relationship was found between locations of serve-returns and winning the point of the male and female professional, Under-16 and Under-12 players. It was also revealed that professional players attacked second serves by directing second serve returns to the corners of the court These findings aid coaches to value how the serve-return strategies of players may evolve with age and vary with gender — in line with variables of technical skill development and the game’s temporal demands.

Knowledge Representation and Pattern Recognition Skills of Elite Adult and Youth Soccer Players

This study investigated knowledge representation and pattern of play recognition skills of elite adult and youth soccer players, while participating in conditioned phases of play. Players (n = 16) participated in their own expertise group and verbal reports were transcribed and coded into concepts (Goals, Conditions, Actions) based on a modified model of protocol structure used for tennis by (McPherson & Kernodle 2007). A Mann Whitney test was used to analyse the mean scores of the participants for knowledge representation and a Chi Square test was performed using percentage scores to identify differences in the players’ ability to recognise patterns of play. The study showed that adult experts (n = 8) were able to generate more content and details, when verbalising their cognitive thought processes in game situations than youth (n = 8) elite players. The findings support previous research in that more experienced adult players are able to consistently call upon more developed long term memory whilst processing information with the existence of action plans and current event profiles. Differences were recorded in the percentage scores for players’ ability to recognise patterns of play, which provide evidence that elite youth players’ game-reading skills (pattern recognition) are as well developed as elite adults.

The Self-Presentation Motives for Physical Activity Questionnaire: Instrument Development and Preliminary Construct Validity Evidence

With the aim of advancing the literature on impression management in physical activity settings, we developed a theoretically derived 2 by 2 instrument that was designed to measure different types of context-specific self-presentation motives. Following item generation and expert review (Study 1), the instrument was completed by 206 group exercise class attendees (Study 2) and 463 high school physical education students (Study 3). Our analyses supported the intended factor structure (i.e., reflecting acquisitive-agentic, acquisitive-communal, protective-agentic, and protective-communal motives). We found some support for construct validity, and the self-presentation motives were associated with variables of theoretical and applied interest (e.g., impression motivation and construction, social anxiety, social and achievement goals, efficacy beliefs, engagement). Taken together, the results indicate that the Self-presentation Motives for Physical Activity Questionnaire (SMPAQ) may be useful for measuring various types of self-presentation motives in physical activity settings.