A study of the national curriculum for physical education (2005-2013): socialisation and the value orientations of male and female students and teachers, and male physical education teachers’ curricular interpretation and lesson delivery

This study considered how physical education teachers’ different value orientations (Ennis and Chen, 1993) may result in different interpretations of statutory guidance provided by National Curriculum for Physical Education (NCPE) statutory guidance. The value orientations, proposed by Ennis and Chen (1993), were disciplinary mastery, the learning process, self-actualisation, ecological integration and social responsibility. Interpretative coding and categorisation (Saldaña, 2015) of value orientations within National Curriculum Aims, NCPE statutory guidance and the value orientations with which students arrived at, and left, teacher training programmes at a Higher Education Institution (HEI) was completed. The value orientations of serving teachers were investigated, observations of lessons delivered by four male teachers were undertaken and semi-structured interviews were completed. Data derived from observations utilised the same principles of coding to investigate whether, or not, the language used by physical education teachers, in their teaching, reflected the dominant value orientations that they held, as indicated by their Value Orientation Inventory results. Results indicated that NCPE statutory guidance was privileged towards disciplinary mastery and, to a lesser extent, the learning process and that assessment criteria did not relate strongly to National Curriculum or NCPE aims and statutory guidance. Significant statistical differences were identified between the proportions of early-stage students and serving teachers who held the learning process value orientation strongly. Otherwise no significant differences between early and late stage students and serving teachers were identified which suggested that HEI programmes had little effect in changing the attitudes, values and dispositions in all value orientations except the learning process. Findings derived from observations of lessons and semi-structured interviews suggested that serving teachers’ lessons reflected the value orientations that they held. Teachers whose value orientations were more closely aligned with those represented in NCPE documentation reported greater ease of curricular interpretation and delivery. Recommendations are made for future practice to promote greater breadth and balance in the holistic development of children and young people through all five value orientations to include development and assessment in, and of, physical, cognitive, intellectual, emotional, social and personal characteristics