'It's just what we do!' - Physical Educators views on preparedness to deliver Health and Wellbeing

The whole school prominence given to HWB in Scotland has resulted in increased responsibility for Physical Education (PE) graduates and there is a need for PE to undertake a profound transformation (Fletcher & Casey, 2014).... [ view full abstract ]

The whole school prominence given to HWB in Scotland has resulted in increased responsibility for Physical Education (PE) graduates and there is a need for PE to undertake a profound transformation (Fletcher & Casey, 2014). Mastery experiences during ITE and induction year contribute to the development of preparation leading to confidence or ‘teacher efficacy’ (Hoy, 2000). Given this it is essential to consider the views of early phase PE practitioners on their preparedness to undertake this increased responsibility for HWB. In initial framing of the research study, the four categories of teacher presented by Menter et al. (2010) were used as lenses for examining student perceptions.

Quantitative and qualitative data was gathered via questionnaires. This then led on to the second stage of data collection; qualitative data was collected in the form of focus groups. The first two stages of data collection happened in the participants graduating year. The final stage of data collection, which happened at the end of the participant’s probationary year, was semi-structured interviews.

The questionnaire data was analysed for descriptive statistics and common themes. The ability to capture the experiential world of the participants is of key importance and the selection of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) for the analysis of focus group and interview data allowed for this. This inductive method allows the researcher to focus on interpretation of meanings (Smith et al, 2009). The findings of the study indicate that participants agreed that they were prepared for their probationary year. For many participants PE and HWB were viewed as being synonymous as it was ‘just what we do!’. However variation was observed in levels of perceived preparedness to meet their responsibility for HWB. Given this it could be concluded that early phase practitioners are prepared for some aspects of HWB, but not all.