Instructional Practices, Barriers to Quality Teaching and Status of Physical Education in Public Primary Schools

Abstract

The study examined 1) instructional practices of teachers and regularity of teaching PE 2) adequacy of teacher education for teaching PE 3) status of PE as a school subject and 4) barriers to effective teaching of PE in the public primary schools of Volta Region, Ghana. The study design was cross-sectional descriptive survey. Multistage sampling technique yielded a sample of 636 subjects out of estimated population of 9,165 from six randomly sampled districts in the Volta Region of Ghana. Validated and reliable self-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Pre-data analyses were performed to clean data from probable errors during data entering. All data were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS for Windows, Version 17). The study found that a large number of teachers do not follow prescriptions of lesson time table for teaching PE in the public primary schools, neither do they regularly teach PE, write lesson notes, attend workshops nor get supervised. According to the study, most teachers of public primary schools received inadequate knowledge in PE before starting professional carrier as teachers of PE. In comparison with other curricular subjects such english, maths and science, most teachers rated PE as having lower status as a school subject. From the study, an increase in the quality of teacher education programme in PE was associated with a corresponding increase in the frequency at which PE lessons were taught while a decrease in the quality of teacher education programme in PE was associated with an increase in teacher-related barriers to effective teaching of PE in public primary schools. It was recommended that Ghana Education Service (GES) and schools should liaise to supply and improvise teaching resources, create opportunities for workshops/professional development for teachers in public primary schools.