James Bozung

Where Have All the Physical Educators Gone? (Hint: Its NOT Higher Education)

The purpose of this study is to determine why so few K-12 physical education teachers who are required to take graduate courses for teacher certification do not continue in higher education beyond the mandatory requirements. In a study by Boyce and Rikard, it is stated that the shortage of teacher educators may have a negative impact on the amount of public school educators produced in colleges and universities.  K-12 physical education is a very important aspect in schools today. If physical education teacher education positions are not filled, the future of physical education in K-12 schools could be grim.  This project is designed to identify the barriers as well as opportunities related to physical education teacher education.

 

The student scholar performed an in depth literature review related to the topic. With these readings, the scholar identified key words to use in categorizing the articles and developed questions for a survey. Examples of key topics included finances, university location, and incentives. The topic of finances includes issues related to having the money to afford the higher education. The university location is defined by the location of the university in proximity to the student’s needs.  The incentives pertain to scholarships, assistantship, k-12 school financial support, and grants that will cover the tuition of the prospective graduate student. These topics are important to perspective graduate students because they are important when it comes to deciding if they go on to a master’s or doctorate degree. With the key topics, the student scholar and his mentor professors developed statements in the creation of a survey.

 

The student scholar placed the survey he and his mentors created into Survey Monkey in preparation to have it sent out to be tested. The student then sent the completed survey to his peers to have it beta tested. The survey was then sent to experts to check the content validity of the survey.  The survey was edited based on this feedback. Following IRB approval the survey will be sent out to K-12 physical educators using the Michigan Department of Education listserv and Indiana. Indiana is a state that requires a master’s degree to continue certification in K-12 instruction. Michigan requires 18 credits of continuing education. This data will be compiled in order to get those considering moving on to a master’s or doctorate degree aware of the barriers and opportunities that other K-12 educators experienced when they were attaining their physical education teacher education degrees.

Faculty Mentors: Colleen Lewis and Mary Schutten, Movement Science

Page last modified July 30, 2009