Self-Identified and Observed Teaching Styles: A Case Study of Senior Physical Education Teachers in Queensland Schools

Abstract

Teaching styles are valued by educators for what they can achieve. In undertaking research in the area of teaching styles, we set out to explore not only specific research questions but also some beliefs about what to expect of teachers, but as shall be discussed, these are ‘beliefs’ that modulate into ‘myths’. The findings of the study challenged the assumptions of the study questions and the ‘truth’ about teaching styles actually used by teachers. In recent times, curriculum documents by governments in places such as Scotland, England and Queensland (a state in Australia) have called for a range of teaching styles or approaches to meet the variety of learner differences and allow students to make more independent decision-making in physical education (Hardy & Mawer, 1999). Prior to 2005, no research had been conducted on the teaching styles that teachers of physical education use in Queensland, among this set of international priorities. Cothran et al. (2005) completed a study titled A Cross-Cultural Investigation of the Use of Teaching Styles, which presented a questionnaire to teachers (including in Queensland) with scenarios of teaching styles based on the 11 styles identified by Mosston and Ashworth (2002). The study outlined here was designed to identify the teaching styles (based on the work of Mosston & Ashworth, 2002) that 110 teachers of Queensland Senior Physical Education believed they used and then sought to confirm the use of these teaching styles by observation of the lessons of nine volunteer participants across three of their lessons of Senior Physical Education in a unit of work.