بازدهی مربی تربیت بدنی در یک شرایط بهداشت عمومی Physical Education Teacher Effectiveness in a Public Health Context

PE is institutionalized as part of the K – ۱۲ education curriculum in the United States and is also one of only five interventions strongly recommended for increasing physical activity by the National Task Force on Community Preventive Service (Kahn et al., 2002). We contend that although it is important for PE to continue to strive for subject matter value and assimilation into an everincreasing high-stakes educational environment, it should not do so at the cost of forfeiting its foundational roots in health and medicine. In this article, we have summarized the need for PE to have a public health focus and made the case for how teaching effectiveness in PE should be defined, evaluated, and targeted for intervention if public health goals are to be met. We focused specifically on the need for teachers to be effective in implementing PE classes that engage students in ample amounts of enjoyable physical activity that will result in the development of physical fitness and motor skills that will serve them well into the future. Yet, as also highlighted in this article, teaching does not occur in a contextual vacuum, and it is challenging to separate teacher effectiveness from PE program or school effectiveness. The reality in schools is that there are many barriers to PE’s optimal contribution to public health, with the primary ones being administrative support, the frequency and duration of classes, and low student enrollment requirements. Even the most effective teachers cannot promote and provide ample physical activity, improve fitness, or develop generalizable motor skills if students do not actually participate in classes. Hence, like many others, we believe that PE and the role of the PE teacher must expand beyond the gymnasium into classrooms and onto the playing fields before, during, and after school. Notions of PE teacher effectiveness must change to fit this new model, and both the preservice and in-service education of teachers need to be revised accordingly (e.g., Corbin & McKenzie, 2008; IOM, 2013; McKenzie, 2007). We strongly believe that the future of PE in our nation’s schools will depend on the provision of programs that are perceived to be of public importance, and in our view, this will depend largely on the effectiveness of PE teachers to operate within a public health context. As we have highlighted throughout this article, there are numerous barriers that prevent PE from playing a greater role in meeting public health outcomes, including those associated with the structural delivery of PE (e.g., PE facilities [size, location, and amenities], teacher credentials, class size, equipment-to-student ratio, scheduled lesson length, and frequency of lessons). There is a paucity of research evidence that guides any modifiable aspect of PE’s structural delivery in schools, and these aspects certainly have either a mediating or moderating effect on teaching effectiveness within a public health context. For example, although some research has been conducted on class size and its relationship to physical activity (e.g., McKenzie et al., 2000), there have been no focused efforts to identify class size thresholds. Additionally, no studies have examined differential PE scheduling and only a few have assessed the impact of different instructional models in relation to physical activity outcomes. We believe that strategic dissemination and translation of such research could inform practice and policy and go a long way in improving public health outcomes in PE.