TO EVALUATE PGCE STUDENTS PERCEPTIONS AND KNOWLEDGE OF ADAPTING AND INCLUDING STUDENTS WITH PHYSICAL DISABILITIES IN PE LESSONS.

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate PGCE student’s perceptions and attitudes towards the planning and delivery of inclusive Physical Education lessons with specific reference to pupils with physical disabilities. An additional area of enquiry was the relationship of these perceptions and attitudes to experiences before and during the PGCE course. Previous research showed that PE teachers perceived ability to teach students affected their attitudes and therefore the success of inclusion. Interviews with a PGCE lecturer were used to investigate the impact of the PGCE course and placements in schools on competence in teaching inclusive lessons. This included investigating their views on the potential value of having formal teaching on disabilities and associated topics. The interview provided informed questions in the second stage of the research. A questionnaire was handed out to all 45 students on the 2011/12 PGCE course. The results showed that experience is vital in increasing student’s confidence. The analysis of this data gave similar results to previously published research with discussion of the key findings which identified possible improvements to the PGCE course, the development of PGCE student’s confidence and perceived competence when planning and delivering inclusive PE lessons. PGCE students showed they were not as confident in planning inclusive PE lessons even though the PGCE lecturer commented that a lot of time is spent on planning, it is therefore concluded that more specific teaching on planning and being able to transfer to different situations as needed. To further investigate this area, future studies should conduct the research on a larger sample to see it the findings are the same across several PGCE cohorts in Wales. They could look at interviewing those students with experience, or after a few years of teaching to yield more in-depth data.