An investigation of the perceptions physical education teachers have of their working lives in the comprehensive schools of a north-east county borough

Abstract

"An investigation of the perceptions physical education teachers have of their working lives in the comprehensive schools of a North-East County Borough. "by Derek A. P. Hughes The purpose of this investigation was to increase under= standing of the work of physical education teachers in the seven comprehensive schools of the North-East County Borough of Hucklehrough (pseudonym). The study, using reflexive techniques, was exploratory, and attempted to capture the essence of what it was to be a physical education teacher in a period immediately following comprehensive reorganisation, when the schools were adjusting to the raising of the school leaving age. The investigation covers a five year period, from the foundation phase in 1974-75 to the substantive phase in 1979-80. In-depth interviews, focusing on the realities of their working world, were conducted with 62 teachers. The private interviews, which were tape-recorded, and the verbatim transcripts returned to interviewees for correction and elaboration, resulted in 71 teacher-accounts. The teacher-accounts were studied closely; and four major physical education teacher perception categories established. 1. social perceptions, including perceptions of pupils and professional colleagues; 2. school-structure perceptions, including perceptions of school organisation and resources; 3. career perceptions classified by years of experience, and 4. self perceptions. An analysis of 32 seven-consecutive-day diaries, which took account of seasonal influences, resulted in estimates of the physical education teacher's working week. Physical education is perceived by these teachers to have declined over the study period. The curriculum, and the extra- curriculum, and the teachers' professional morale were perceived to have been richer in the foundation phase than in the substantive phase; by 1979, each and every physical education department had sustained disabling inter-personal tensions; the schools' resources, unevenly distributed throughout the Borough, were inadequate to sustain a coherent system of physical education. The study suggests that the physical education syllabus and its outcomes are determined more by a school's physical resources and organisational structures than by rational educational judgements.