Health and wellbeing - the responsibility of all? An investigation into perceived levels of preparedness in physical education graduates

Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) has resulted in health and wellbeing (HWB) becoming theresponsibility of all teachers (Scottish Government, n.d) and has increased responsibility forphysical education (PE) teachers (Gray and Mitchell, 2015). The initial teacher education (ITE)of PE teachers must ensure that they are able to meet the challenges associated withchanging societal trends and government priorities (AIESEP, 2014). This study examined howPE graduates from an ITE programme in Scotland view their levels of preparedness formeeting their responsibility for HWB. It investigated factors that impact perceivedpreparedness of probationary teachers and early-phase practitioners through qualitativemethods (focus groups and interviews). These were analysed using the inductive method ofInterpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), which allows the researcher to focus on theinterpretation of meanings (Smith et al., 2009).This thesis extends the work of Menter et al. (2010) by establishing that the stages which abeginning professional travels through during their career development may be morecomplex that originally set out in the literature. Building on the work of Gray and Mitchell(2015), the study has shown that participants see PE and HWB as being closely linked, andthis has increased and changed the responsibilities as physical educators. The study alsodemonstrates that teachers’ understanding of HWB and its implications for their practice canmould their perception of their preparedness. This study indicates that the understanding ofthe HWB policy is varied, and its implementation is inconsistent for participants, givingfurther substance to the idea that how policy is enacted in practice is rarely uncomplicated(Thorburn and Gray, 2009). Building on the work of Mayer (2016), this project shows thatknowledge of context is significant and that a range of ‘unknowns’ has an influence onperceived preparedness. It provides the basis for an understanding of the experiences ofparticipants within a context and suggests that the respondents in this study felt prepared forsome but not all aspects of their responsibility for HWB, and that these feelings wereinfluenced by factors such as experience and context.