DETERMINING TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS FOR TEACHING PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN FIJI SECONDARY SCHOOLS
Abstract
Education is a gradual process which brings positive changes in human life and behaviour. Physical Education is included in the curriculum for a variety of reasons. It assists young people in making informed lifestyle decisions. Furthermore, it promotes lifelong participation in physical activity by assisting in the development of movement skills. For talented individuals, participation in Physical Education activities leads to career aspirations in sports. Physical Education teachers are crucial in the effective implementation of the specialized learning and teaching program related to Physical Education and sports.
This research aims to evaluate the teaching effectiveness of secondary school Physical Education teachers towards teaching Physical Education in secondary schools of Fiji. This study was conducted on 254 (109 females and 149 males) secondary school physical education and sports teachers. Teachers completed Dr Santosh Dhar and Dr Upinder Dhar (2015) Teacher Effectiveness scale. The Cronbach's alpha value was 0.82. The scale comprises a knowledgeable, transparent, learning-oriented, helpful, motivator and analytical teacher. The relationship between the five aspects was compared to gender, location, teacher specialty and years of teaching experience. One-way ANOVA was used to determine the meaningful relation. The significance level was set to 0.05.
Findings indicated a significant difference on all variables, that is, between gender and experience of the teachers. Male teachers showed more effectiveness in teaching physical Education than female teachers. The experienced teachers were more effective in teaching than the inexperienced teachers. There was a significant difference between the specialist and non-specialist physical education teachers in terms of effectiveness. The mean scores of males and females were below 70 %, which shows a need for some specialist training of teachers towards Physical Education.
