Co-educational versus single-sex physical education and the revised GCSE content: how will they affect students’ attainment levels?

Aim: This study attempted to factually establish which class structure is most beneficial to students’ successes within the relative components of PE, identify the extent to which the gender gap is present, compare the perceptions of the physical educators and finally, attempt to discover how the revised content may affect students’ future successes. Method: GCSE PE results from the 2013/2014 academic year were gathered from three schools (n = 134 students), one co-educational school (n = 50 students), one single-sex female school (n = 18 students) and one single-sex male school (n = 66 students). The results were statistically compared and analysed to test for significant differences. Three teachers were than interviewed and their responses were likened to the quantitative results. Findings: results found that there was a significant difference in the theory component of GCSE PE with males consistently producing significantly lower results than females in both individual gender attainment and class structure analysis. On the other hand no significant difference was discovered in the practical assessments in either class structure or gender attainment. Conclusion: It was concluded that students should be educated in co-educational classes for theory lessons but the practical element required further research before a conclusion could be stated. Finally; it was found that the revised GCSE content would leave males at a disadvantage and potentially; decrease the overall successes of both genders but moreover, the GCSE PE qualification as a whole