Classroom Teachers’ Observations of Physical Education Lessons

Elementary school classroom teachers continue to have primary responsibility for teaching elementary physical education. As a group, they have received little attention concerning their development of pedagogical skills in physical education. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to describe what preservice classroom teachers observe and what perceptual processes they employ while observing physical education field lessons. The participants were seven junior elementary education majors who observed two physical education classes. Data were collected using the techniques of thinking aloud and stimulated recall interview. The constant comparative method of data analysis revealed the following three themes as characteristic of this group of preservice classroom teachers: students’ movement responses dominated their observational attention, the classroom teachers evaluated what they saw, and they observed using the perceptual process of contrast.