Teaching Efficiency or Inefficiency in Elementary Physical Education

The school curriculum clearly defines that the main purpose of elementary physical education is to help students develop positive attitudes towards physical education, engage in lifetime physical activity through the development of knowledge and skills, develop an integrated personality and cultivate moral and social values. How close are elementary children to the above purpose? Is this achieved through elementary physical education class? The purpose of the study was to examine the teaching efficiency or inefficiency of classroom teachers when teaching physical education, from the perspective of time. For that purpose, 30 elementary school teachers (18 female and 12 male) from public schools all over Cyprus were randomly selected to participate in this study. Participating teachers were assigned to teach physical education in their schools. Teachers were asked to give 2 dates on which school visits to schools were scheduled to attend their courses and collect data related to their teaching, such as time management, presentation of activities, organization of children and equipment, feedback provided and others. For data collection purposes a previously validated recording instrument designed by Silverman, Subramaniam, & Woods (1998) was used. The teacher behavior instrument required the coder to collect data on both instructional behaviors (e.g., explanation, demonstration, and monitoring) and organizational behaviors (e.g., children organization and equipment organization). In addition, informal semi-structured interviews with the teachers were also conducted, in order to learn about their beliefs about teachers’ behaviors in class and the value they give to them, such as organizational behaviors and others. The descriptive statistical analysis revealed data that show in principle the diversity, from class to class, in the variables that have been studied. The most important factor, however, is the ineffective use of the available class time, which negatively affected the components of a physical education course, such as the consumption of a large part of the time in organizational or other processes while deducting time that could be offered to the children for more physical activity, more efforts, and probably better learning. Data analysis revealed four important themes that should be of concern to those involved with physical education: 1) The need for better time management, 2) The need to improve the teaching and organizational factors of the class, 3) The need for feedback to students during practice time, and 4) The need for final assessment when at the end of the class.