Self-identified and observed teaching styles of senior physical education teachers in Queensland schools

Abstract

Teaching styles, methods, models, approaches, strategies, and techniques (Mosston and Ashworth, 2002) are valued for what they claim they can achieve. In recent times curriculum documents and governments in Scotland, England and Queensland, Australia have called for a range of teaching approaches to meet the variety of learner differences and allow students to make more independent decision making in physical education (Hardy and Mawer, 1999). Prior to 2005, no research had been conducted on the teaching styles that teachers of Physical Education use in Queensland. This paper will present the findings of research completed on the reported teaching styles (based on the work of Mosston & Ashworth, 2002) that 110 teachers of Queensland Senior Physical Education believed they used and the teaching styles that were observed as being used by nine participants across three one hour lessons of senior physical education. It was found that teachers reported using a variety of styles yet when video-recorded lessons of nine participants teaching were coded a variety of styles were not observed. These results have implications for the delivery of the Queensland Senior Physical Education Syllabus in terms of its learning experiences and assessment.