Pre-service educators' perspectives on the role of physical education as a means for values education in South Africa

Abstract

The rapidly changing world characterised by technological comforts, social ills and complicated lifestyles has contributed to the decline of  traditional values in most societies. Physical education (PE) programmes should employ holistic developmental approaches to instill  desirable values in learners. The aim of the study was to determine and explore pre-service educators' strategies in infusing values  education through PE lessons. The study was grounded in the social learning theoretical framework. In this qualitative study, information  was gathered from open ended questionnaires, unstructured interviews and reflexive journals from a purposively sampled cohort of final  year pre-service PE educators at a tertiary institution in the Gauteng province of South Africa. Thematic analysis was applied in  which raw data from interview transcripts and texts were used to examine topics, ideas and patterns which emerged repeatedly from the  data. The data were interpreted to confirm, contradict or reveal novel findings in comparison with the literature. The themes which  emerged from the study included pre-service educators' conceptualisation of values, reasons for values education and strategies to  include values education in PE. The findings showed that PE was associated with positive values which contributed to character  development. The participants proposed various pedagogic strategies such as role modelling, developing an appropriate environment as  well as placing learners in small multicultural groups as critical means to instill desirable values through PE. The study recommends that  schools prioritise values education through PE in view of its pivotal role in engendering holistic development in learners in the South  African context.