Education Students' and Lecturers' Experiences of the Effectiveness of Physical Education Teacher Training in Distance Education Mode

Overview & Synopsis

Distance education is a mode of teaching that enables students who are not able to enrol fulltime at a university due to a shortage of time, physical access or financial abilities, to study in their own environment and at their own pace. Only one university in South Africa offers Physical Education as a comprehensive module in the distance education mode. The aim of this study was thus to investigate education students' and lecturers' positive and negative experiences of the effectiveness of Physical Education teacher training in distance education mode at a university in South Africa. Underpinned by Moore's Theory of Transactional Distance (TTD) (1983), data were collected by means of semi-structured, individual interviews with four lecturers and open-ended questionnaires with 17 students in a Physical Education distance education module. The five themes that emanated from the data analysis, were: interaction between students and lecturers; competence, passion and enthusiasm to teach Physical Education; obstacles with regard to Physical Education in distance learning; experiences with regard to practical training in Physical Education; and the content of the Physical Education program and students' perceptions of Physical Education. From the findings of positive and negative experiences of Physical Education in distance education mode, recommendations are made for Physical Education teacher training in distance education mode, for example, additional face-to-face contact opportunities, additional technological training, the enhanced use of student-interaction functions in learning management systems and sufficient management and administration systems at universities. [For the complete Volume 20 proceedings, see ED622631.]