Students' behaviour in Maltese secondary physical education classes

Abstract

Students' behaviour during Physical Education lessons is a topic which is currently widely discussed and the media are very aware of the effects of inappropriate behaviour on teachers. This research focuses on how students' behaviour in Physical Education has changed throughout the years. The most common types of misbehaviour are also pointed out as well as their frequency. Possible reasons for students' misbehaviour are also analysed together with the consequences related to them. The importance of using management protocols has also been highlighted. All these results are analysed by the sex of students and the years of teaching experience of the teachers. This study is both a quantitative one as well as qualitative. Questionnaires were distributed to all P.E. teachers teaching in all types of Secondary schools to add up to a sample of 92 teachers. SPSS was used to analyse these questionnaires. Seven observations were done with seven Form three classes from seven different schools. These classes were observed for a 45 minute lesson. Then, an interview was done with the respective teacher. It was noted that even though there were 522 instances of misbehaviour observed in 315 minutes of physical education lessons, the majority of the teachers (71.4%) said that they find no difficulty in controlling the class. The most common types of misbehaviours resulted to be talking out of turn, excessive noise and irrelevant talk. The most problematic Forms resulted to be the older Form of Form three, four and five. The main reasons for these students' misbehaviour are unsettled home environment (23%) and pupil psychological or emotional instability (23%). Management protocols resulted to be very common as all teachers use them.