Attitudes of year-round physical education teachers towards year-round physical education.

Abstract

Many public school districts in the United States currently have year-round calendars. Whereas several attitudinal studies concerning Year-Round Education (YRE) have been conducted, none were specific to physical education. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes of physical education teachers regarding year-round physical education within the dimensions of teacher satisfaction, student achievement, student discipline, units of instruction, staff development, and facilities and equipment. In addition, an effort was made to describe the relationship of the physical education teachers' attitudes according to demographic characteristics. The instruments used in this study were constructed after reviewing several questionnaires and demographic data sheets pertaining to YRE. Following a stratified random sampling of year-round schools nationwide, 992 physical education teachers were mailed evaluation packets of which 393 were returned. However, only 342 surveys were used to generate statistics since some were deemed unusable. The surveys were analyzed using descriptive, step-wise regression, MANOVA, and Chi-Square statistics. The 0.05 level of probability was used to determine significance. The results of this study revealed that a majority of physical education teachers agreed that they preferred using a year-round calendar more than a traditional calendar. In addition, statistical differences were found for the variables of type of school, track system, continue to teach, and curriculum guides. Groups having a more favorable disposition towards YRE included elementary teachers, single-track teachers, those planning to continue instructing at a year-round school, and those who had access to a curriculum guide. The less favorable groups included secondary teachers, multi-track teachers, those who planned to discontinue instructing at a year-round schooll and those not having access to a curriculum guide. In conclusion, this study determined that diff