Physical Education Cooperating Teachers’ perspectives on professional ethics

Abstract

The teaching profession, being a profession that above all requires human interaction, is inseparable from ethics (Castilho, 2018). Initial teacher training is recognised by its impact in professional development of pre-service teachers, and cooperating teachers are fundamental in this stage. The ethical-professional attitude is transversal to all knowledge related to initial education. Therefore, it is important to study the perspective of cooperating teachers regarding professional ethics. This article presents case studies concerning Portuguese physical education cooperating teachers’ perspective of pre-service teachers’ professional ethics. We followed a qualitative methodology and data was collected from a semi-structured interview with 5 questions. It was interviewed 5 cooperating teachers of the master’s degree in Teaching Physical Education in the University of Coimbra. Data was analysed through thematic content analysis (Bardin, 2011) and revealed that cooperating teachers focus mainly on the personal conduct shown by pre-service teachers. These results reveal a reductionist perception of the notion of professional ethics and the association of professional ethics to personal ethics.

Teaching skills in physical education teacher training: theoretical and factor models

“…And the second, interpersonal or social skills, necessary to work in a team, relate and coexist with others (Wright et al, 2021). The presence in the formative model of the development of critical capacity and ethical commitment (Frey et al, 2019;Ribeiro-Silva and Amorim, 2020) shows the concern for forming self-awareness skills in students, which is an essential basis for developing in them other capacities and teaching skills to adapt, be flexible and creative in the face of the continuous changes and needs of people in the school context (Delors, 1996;OECD, 2016). For their part, the development of personal and interpersonal skills, present in Tuning (González and Wagenaar, 2003), is crucial to promote specific educational skills such as dynamising learning environments and involving students in a meaningful way (Perrenoud, 2004).…”

“…From a critical training perspective, the teachers' skills development must be linked to social transformation (Laval, 2004;Ritzer, 2007), in order to train reliable teachers willing to commit themselves to the training of a citizenry (Sachs, 2016). In this regard, within the educational scenarios, there is a need for professionals with high capacities to take part in the teaching-learning processes and solve issues in a creative and ethical fashion (Evetts, 2013;Frey et al, 2019;Gluchmanová, 2017;Ribeiro-Silva and Amorim, 2020). Hence, it is necessary to train skills in novel teachers by seamlessly addressing their personal and professional capacities.…”