Physical Education Curriculum in the Physical Educator

Physical Education Curriculum

In the Physical Educator journal article "Students' perspective in the design and implementation of the physical education curriculum" (Ha et al.), twenty five secondary schools were chosen to survey the views of both male and female students on the current state of the curriculum in the physical education programs of each high school, each of which implemented a similar physical education program and made use of similar facilities and equipment. While 7000 questionnaires were distributed, a total of 5283 students responded to the survey out from the Hong Kong national school system; males comprised 46% of the respondents and females comprised 54%. The survey used consisted of ten questions, and the most significant respondents were those in grades nine, ten, and eleven. This survey found that approximately one third of high school students from this district would chose not to participate in physical education classes at all if the class were offered as an elective rather than a required course. More male respondents than female ones indicated that they would chose to participate in physical education classes if the classes were not a requirement, though there was not any indication that students currently enrolled in extracurricular sports are more inclined to be interested in the physical education classes. Students identified that social skills like sportsmanship, attitude, and participation should be more important in grading criteria than actual fitness levels or written test and homework results. Letter grading rather than pass/fail assessment methods were vastly preferred by students that responded. The most preferred activities overall among students were tennis, basketball, badminton, swimming, and squash. Males specifically chose soccer, basketball, handball, fitness training, and Chinese kung-fu. Females preferred volleyball, tennis, badminton, games, and creative dance. More than 75% of the respondents to the survey expressed that curriculum should be designed by a collaboration between the student and the teacher, and a majority of the respondents believed that student opinions should be taken into account when designing the curriculum. Approximately 40% of the total students approved of at least one aspect of the current curriculum, but older students were increasingly dissatisfied with the current curriculum.

The authors of this article cite a number of sources that state the basics of constructivist learning theories: teachers and administrators are usually responsible for designing school curriculum, limitations on resources and allocation often prevent teachers from implementing change into the curriculum, and the opinions of students are rarely taken into account when designing curriculum of any subject including physical education. There is of course research suggesting that student involvement in designing the curriculum of any school subject, including physical education, may increase student interest and participation, as well as making the class more beneficial for the students' overall educational experience. The authors of this article believe that students should be more involved in the design and implementation of school curriculum in the Hong Kong schools and elsewhere. While the Education Commission for these schools have attempted to reform schools so that students would have the opportunity to be more involved in the educational process, the actual needs of post modern youth culture have not been fully taken into account and therefore the programs have suffered from many shortcomings, as supported by the results of this study. The authors of this article state that responding to student opinion is vital to the success of physical education curriculum.