The purpose of this study was to provide induction assistance to beginning physical education teachers and to investigate the impact of the assistance on the teachers. Two beginning physical educators who were employed at an elementary and a middle school participated in this study. The data were collected by weekly observations, videotape analysis, interviews, and field notes. A case narrative was compiled for each participant according to the emergent themes in each teacher’s case. The results indicated that continued supervision had a positive impact on first-year teachers. The visitations offered the opportunity to receive regular feedback and support so that the teachers began to plan age-appropriate activities, became more efficient managers in the classroom, and increased their instructional feedback. The induction assistance encouraged accountability to the knowledge attained in the teacher preparation program, in addition to making the teachers more reflective and analytical about their teaching.
Physical educators from randomly selected high schools (N = 180) in the AAHPERD Central District were surveyed via telephone regarding their required (9th grade) physical education programs. Four researchers scored the 180 instruments, and each instrument was scored independently with a 96% inter-rater reliability. For the entire sample, 52% of the activity units were team sports, 39% individual sports, 4% dance-gymnastics, and 4% adventure-cooperative-recreational. Of the 180 schools, 71% conducted programs in compliance with Title IX. Of the teachers interviewed, 88% of the females and 30% of the males taught outside their socially accepted areas, although they tended to conduct similar curricula. In general, schools delivered traditional multi-activity programs emphasizing team and lifetime sports, while 25% of the schools had programs with a primary emphasis on competitive, contact, male-oriented team activities. Thus, curricula tended to perpetuate the current socially constructed view of gender and physical activity.
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