The gap between curriculum's aims and how Swedish PE teachers meet the aims through their pedagogy.

What is it about?

Internationally any curriculum documents have a multi-dimensional focus (physical, social, cognitive objectives). These documents usually offer little in the way of suggestions pedagogically of how to meet these objectives. One teaching style is quite clearly unable to meet such a wide variety of objectives. In this research we looked at what the Swedish HPE curriculum document (Skolverket) is trying to achieve and then asked teachers to self-report which teaching styles (from Mosston & Ashworth's Spectrum of Teaching Styles) they believed they used. We then observed 6 PE teachers and coded the teaching styles we saw.

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Why is it important?

This is important as it highlights the gaps between the objectives and the reality. Curriculum documents often give a 'destination' but do not give teachers the map or route to get there.