Transferring responsibility in primary school physical education: Experiences of five teachers participating in a professional development programme

Abstract

Developing personal and social skills is an important educational goal and part of citizenship education. In physical education (PE), transferring responsibility for managing activities is a method to achieve this goal. For teachers, however, it is a challenge to relinquish control. This qualitative study investigated how five PE teachers experience a continuous professional development (CPD) programme aimed to help them deal with this challenge. Findings showed that a CPD programme can help teachers to make room for children to manage activities independently. However, teachers’ beliefs about the purpose of PE and limited teaching time complicate their willingness to transfer responsibility.