Self-reported teaching styles of Australian senior physical education teachers

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Why is it important?

The main purpose of this paper was to present the findings of research completed on the reported teaching styles (based on the work of Mosston and Ashworth 2002) that 110 teachers of Queensland Senior Physical Education believed they used, and to establish how often they believed they used them. Participants included 110 secondary school physical education teachers of years 11 and 12 in the Australian state of Queensland. Data were collected using an adaption of the Kulinna et al. (Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science, 7(1): 25–41, 2003) and the Cothran et al. (Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 76(2) 193–201, 2005) instrument which required participants to read 11 scenarios describing the teaching styles from the Spectrum of Teaching Styles introduced by Mosstion and Ashworth above. The teachers in this study reported using a range of styles from both the reproduction and production clusters. The findings of this study indicate that numerous factors may influence teachers' reported use of teaching styles, and that further research is necessary to confirm if teachers are able to accurately report on the teaching styles they use.