Beliefs of Slovenian early childhood educators regarding the implementation of physical education

Abstract

This cross-sectional study was designed to identify Slovenian early childhood educators’ beliefs concerning the importance of the competencies required to carry out physical education (PE), to identify which of those competencies early childhood educators might lack and to identify which competencies should be developed in the process of continuous professional development. For this purpose, a self-administered questionnaire was designed to examine belief statements regarding a wide scope of PE competencies among 183 early childhood educators. The participants evaluated the importance of individual competencies and reported their current and desired levels of competencies using a four-level scale. The results showed that early childhood educators believe that competencies to teach PE are an important part of early childhood education and that they need to improve in such competencies to carry out PE above the existing level. In particular, early childhood educators would like to improve in knowledge, skills and abilities that will enable them to implement PE efficiently and effectively to change children’s health-related behaviours. We suggest that the gap between the self-reported beliefs about the current level of PE competencies and the desired level of PE competencies is vital for policy-makers, who aim to create unitary early childhood education and care systems in which similar qualifications and competencies among early childhood educators are needed. It seems that a lack of policy, curriculum development and educators’ expertise in PE contributes to the considerable variation in the understanding of the educational role of early childhood educators within PE.

Keywords

Preschool education kindergarten physical activity quality

Introduction

The formation of system solutions related to the determination and assurance of quality education, which was initiated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member states in the 1980s, has affected the development of similar modes of thinking in the European Union (EU). In the 1990s, the Slovenian society demonstrated the need for overhauling early childhood education and care (ECEC) with the goal of assuring its quality. According to the objective of this overhaul, the fundamental Slovenian documents (Bahovec et al., 1999; Krek, 1995; Krek and Meteljak, 2011) indicated that high-quality kindergartens would be accessible to all children and that high-quality ECEC would be implemented in the curriculum. Slovenia is among eight European countries that guarantee a legal right to ECEC for each child soon after birth (Eurydice, 2014). ECEC is not compulsory in Slovenia; children are admitted between 11 months (following the end of statutory maternity leave) and 6 years of age (first age group, 11 months−3 years; and second age group, 4–6 years) or the age when they enter primary school. Parents can enrol their children in public or private kindergarten. In the school year 2014/2015, there were 84,750 children, which is more than 75% of all preschool children, enrolled in 979 kindergartens, of which 900 (92%) were public (96% of children enrolled) and 79 (8%) were private (4% of children enrolled) (Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, 2015). There has been an increasing number of children in kindergarten since the year 2004/2005; the number increased by 54.6% (from 54,815 children in 2004/2005 to 84,750 children in 2014/2015) (Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, 2015). In 2014/2015, there were 11,658 early childhood educators working in ECEC, including 5,140 early childhood educators (core practitioners) with a bachelor’s degree (International Standard Classification of Education – ISCED 5) and 5,642 early childhood educators’ assistants with an upper-secondary vocational qualification (ISCED 3) (Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, 2015). Slovenia has established an integrated approach to ECEC, combining education and care in preschool institutions with the aim of supporting parents in raising their children, improving the quality of family life, and creating good conditions for developing children’s physical, cognitive, social, mental, and spiritual abilities (Kindergarten Act, 2005). In contrast to the integrated model, a split model considers education and care provisions to be structured separately according to the age of preschool children. Often, for children around the ages of 0–3, the focus is on care, and for children aged 3 to compulsory school age, the focus is on education and school preparation (Lindeboom and Buiskool, 2013). Conversely, in an integrated model, ECEC is organised within a single phase for all children of preschool age, thus making it a unitary system. The children visit one institution, which is governed by one specific ministry and is led by one manager, and the ECEC practitioners generally have similar qualifications (Lindeboom and Buiskool, 2013). In Slovenia, the unitary system is used in which both core practitioners and assistants are involved in the planning and have a social pedagogical role, which includes caring and learning (Van Laere et al., 2012).

The Slovenian Curriculum for Kindergartens (Bahovec et al., 1999) and its supplement Child in Kindergarten (Marjanovic Umek et al., 2008) are based on both an awareness of individual differences in development and learning and an appreciation of the child’s integrative and balanced development. The objectives, content and activities are designed separately for the first and the second age groups of children to enhance the use of developmentally appropriate activities. The curriculum is divided into six developmental areas: physical education (PE); language; art; social studies; science; and mathematics. The PE section focuses on the learning of fundamental movement skills (initial level of proficiency in the first age group and elementary level of proficiency in the second age group), development of motor abilities (with emphasis on balance and coordination) as well as unstructured play and holistic strategies of child development. For example, the activities include the following: (a) fundamental movement skills (walk, run, jump, hop, one-foot balance, body rolling, ball rolling, ball catch, ball dribble, etc.); (b) fine motor skills; (c) movements to rhythm; (d) movement imitations; (e) cycling (tricycle, balance bicycle, bicycle, etc.); (f) swimming (water familiarisation, submerging face, floating, rotating, basic travelling through water, gliding, etc.); and (g) alpine skiing (equipment familiarisation, skiing position, getting up, safe stopping, wedge, turns, etc.).

Consistent with the growing knowledge about ECEC, the profession of early childhood educators requires upgrading, strengthening, expanding, and modifying knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Currently, the basis for effective pedagogical work is the continuous professional development (CPD) of competencies. CPD applies to a full range of activities that aim to increase the knowledge base, skill set, or attitudinal perspectives of early childhood educators related to educator–child interactions (Sheridan et al., 2009) that we refer to in this study as competencies. Unlike general competencies, which are subject-independent or cross-curricular (e.g. qualification for planning and time management, ability for ethical and professionally correct attitude, and ability for teamwork), specific competencies are closely related to an individual subject area (e.g. understanding the physical and motor development of children, qualification for demonstrating movement skills, and qualification for planning physical activities). These specific competencies can serve as a basis for creating more coherent ECEC training and education systems, as well as for ensuring that all educators of young children have the necessary knowledge and skills to meet the children’s developmental needs (Bellm, 2008).

However, in addition to the educators’ level of education and characteristics (e.g. knowledge and experience), their beliefs determine the quality of teaching and care (Strong, 2011). Belief systems influence the way they respond to children (Stipek and Byler, 1997) and thus influence generic and content-specific teaching practices (Kyriakides et al., 2017). Educators’ beliefs in their own efficacy can positively influence a child’s behaviour (Hmelak and Lepicnik Vodopivec, 2015). This finding is in accordance with Bandura’s (1977) social-cognitive theory, which suggests that individuals regulate their behaviour and effort according to the information concerning their capability. The belief in one’s own capability to teach mediates the educators’ professional behaviour and thus impacts the quality of teaching and care in all areas of the curriculum. Early et al. (2007) encouraged policy-makers and practitioners to consider beliefs and the educators’ education as crucial parts of CPD to ensure high-quality educators.

All European countries have issued steering documents for at least one stage of the early years covering the provision of education and care. The form (part of an education programme, reference framework of skills, care and education plans, own ECEC setting plan, etc.), application of educational component (in many countries only care component is considered), degree of care/educational orientation, qualification requirements for ECEC staff, and application of the steering documents for ECEC vary considerably among countries (Eurydice, 2014). However, all of these documents define learning objectives or outcomes, which are often translated to the learning or developmental areas and activities. In contrast to academic learning (Laevers, 2005), there is a large degree of consensus regarding physical development and movement, which are considered a vital part of holistic development. The latter is covered in all European countries, except in Croatia (Eurydice, 2014). In this study, we will refer to the curricular area of physical development and movement as PE. We acknowledge that the term PE in ECEC does not equate to the area of physical development and movement in an international context. Considerable differences exist between the uses of terminology in different educational systems; thus, we decided to apply the broadly used and understandable term PE for the educational programme that involves providing opportunities for children to be active and interactive, as well as helping them understand the importance of physical activity (Department of Education, 2017).

In Slovenia, early childhood educators teach PE in preschool settings. Practice, encouragement, and quality instruction are needed to achieve mature movement patterns and the development of motor abilities (Clark, 2007; Gallahue and Ozmun, 2006; Logan et al., 2012). The role of the early childhood educators’ teaching practices in PE and their beliefs about PE are, therefore, significant. In a time of increased emphasis on academic results, it is important for early childhood educators to be adequately qualified to implement planned physical activity and have a positive attitude towards PE as an integral part of healthy development in children. Additionally, their role in PE has to be discussed according to the growing conception of ‘schoolification’. In an international context of ‘schoolification’, ECEC is increasingly conceptualised as preparation for compulsory schooling, and the educational practices of compulsory schooling tend to determine ECEC programmes (Van Laere et al., 2012). These can hinder early childhood educators to create an educational context that adopts a holistic viewpoint on children’s needs. There has been increasing worldwide attention on the educators’ quality and effectiveness in the professional literature (Han and Neuharth-Pritchett, 2010; Hmelak and Lepicnik Vodopivec, 2015; Kyriakides et al., 2017; Strong, 2011; Wen et al., 2011; Wilcox-Herzog, 2002), as well as on educators’ beliefs about PE in ECEC (Hastie et al., 2016; McEvilly et al., 2015; Stirrup, 2016; Tsangaridou and Genethliou, 2014). McEvilly et al. (2017) suggested that it is important to continue investigating the discourses concerning PE in ECEC among practitioners, policy-makers and researchers.

The primary purpose of this study was to identify early childhood educators’ beliefs about the importance of competencies, as well as beliefs about their current and desired levels of competencies for teaching PE in kindergarten. The secondary purpose was to define the knowledge, skills, and practices that early childhood educators might lack in the field of PE and that should be further developed as part of their CPD. For the purpose of this study, we asked the following questions: (a) What are the educators’ beliefs about the importance of competencies to teach PE in ECEC? (b) What are the educators’ beliefs about their own competencies for teaching PE? (c) Do these beliefs differ between the current and desired levels of competencies? According to the questions developed, we anticipated that the educators would regard PE as an important part of ECEC. As Spidell Rusher et al. (1992) observed, early childhood educators strongly believe that motor activities and physical movement should constitute a portion of ECEC. However, we also anticipated that the educators’ self-reported desired level of competencies would be higher than their self-reported current level of competencies.

Methods

Participants

We sent an online self-administered questionnaire with an accompanying newsletter (information on the study) and consent form to all public Slovenian kindergarten classes (headteachers). The headteachers were asked to forward the questionnaire to their early childhood educators. While 844 early childhood educators with a bachelor’s degree responded in part, only 183 (22%) completed the entire questionnaire. On average, the respondents had between six and 10 years of work experience. Almost all of the respondents were female (99%), which is consistent with the predominance of women in the worldwide population of early childhood educators (Rohrmann, 2016). Participation in the study was optional, and the participants were informed about the purpose of the study.

Procedures and measures

An online self-administered questionnaire was developed to rate the beliefs of early childhood educators regarding their competencies to effectively teach PE. The questionnaire included two parts: the first portion related to demographic characteristics (gender, years of service, age, education, etc.); and the second portion related to the beliefs about competencies required to implement PE. The participants rated belief statements about the importance of competencies to effectively teach PE, as well as beliefs about their current and desired levels of PE competencies using a four-level scale (one, completely irrelevant; two, less relevant; three, relevant; and four, highly relevant; one, completely incompetent; two, less competent; three, competent; and four, highly competent). Thus, the participants responded to each statement three times: first, as it pertained to their belief about the importance of competency; second, as it pertained to their current level of competency; and third, as it pertained to their desired level of competency.

The questionnaire included 30 belief statements about competencies required to effectively teach PE in ECEC: general significance of PE (seven items); analysis and planning (seven items); implementation (nine items); and management and monitoring (seven items). General significance of PE included sub-disciplinary belief statements about knowledge, which allows for a wider understanding of the area of human movement (i.e. understanding health aspects of PE, understanding social importance of PE, etc.). Analysis and planning included belief statements about knowledge and abilities for planning PE content according to the situation analysis (i.e. qualification for planning according to the abilities of children, etc.). Implementation included belief statements about knowledge and abilities related to the implementation of PE content (i.e. knowledge about teaching and learning principles, encouraging creativity, applying teaching methods, demonstration, etc.). Management and monitoring included competencies related to the ability to manage the class and monitor children’s physical and motor development as well as an evaluation of one’s own pedagogical work (i.e. qualification for pedagogical management, monitoring motor development, etc.). Early childhood educators were asked to indicate their opinions on the relevance and importance of the competencies that enable them to provide opportunities for children to be active and interactive, help them understand the importance of physical activity (Department of Education, 2017), and enable them to achieve mature movement patterns and develop motor abilities (Clark, 2007; Gallahue and Ozmun, 2006; Logan et al., 2012).

Statistical analysis

All of the collected data were analysed using the IBM SPSS programme version 21.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Non-parametric tests were used because of the typology of the variables. The Friedman test was used to calculate the differences between the sets (importance, current and desired levels of competence) of belief statements and the differences between the four categories of belief statements (general significance of PE; analysis and planning; implementation; and management and monitoring). Additionally, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used based on the different combinations of related categories. Statistically significant differences between parameters were indicated when p < 0.05.

Results

To test the appropriateness of using the full scale, we conducted a second-order factor analysis. All four factors loaded on a single factor (λ = 3.29) that explained 82% of the variance in the educators’ PE competencies beliefs, with coefficients of 0.77 (general significance of PE), 0.90 (analysis and planning), 0.93 (implementation), and 0.90 (management and monitoring), respectively.

The complete set of belief statements showed a high degree of reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.98), while the values of individual segments of the questionnaire varied between 0.96 for the evaluation of importance, 0.96 for the self-reported current level of competencies, and 0.97 for the self-reported desired level of competencies. The questionnaire was determined to be highly reliable.

There was a statistically significant difference in importance depending on the belief statement category, χ²(3) = 151.20, p < 0.001. Early childhood educators believed that the most important competencies are the ones regarding management and monitoring 3.43 (3.14−3.86), followed by implementation of PE 3.33 (3.00−3.67), and analysis and planning 3.29 (3.14−3.71). The least important were beliefs regarding general significance of PE 3.14 (2.86−3.43) (Table 1).

Table 1.

Median values (interquartile range) for four belief statement categories across three sets of beliefs.

	Importance	Current	Desired
General significance of physical education	3.14 (2.86−3.43)	2.57 (2.29−2.86)	3.28 (3.00−3.71)
Analysis and planning	3.29 (3.14−3.71)	2.86 (2.57−3.00)	3.43 (3.14−3.71)
Implementation	3.33 (3.00−3.67)	2.79 (2.56−3.00)	3.44 (3.00−3.89)
Management and monitoring	3.43 (3.14−3.86)	2.86 (2.57−3.00)	3.43 (3.14−3.86)

The belief in the current level of competencies showed statistically significant differences across categories, χ²(3) = 93.42, p < 0.001. Early childhood educators believe they are the most competent in analysis and planning 2.86 (2.57−3.00) and management and monitoring 2.86 (2.57−3.00), less competent in the implementation of PE 2.79 (2.56−3.00), and the least competent in general knowledge on the significance of PE 2.57 (2.29−2.86) (Table 1).

The early childhood educators’ desire to be more competent also showed statistically significant differences across categories, χ²(3) = 75.94, p < 0.001. They would like to better implement PE content 3.44 (3.00−3.89), better analyse and plan PE 3.43 (3.14−3.71), and better manage and monitor the class 3.43 (3.14−3.86). Early childhood educators would also like to know more about the significance of PE 3.28 (3.00−3.71) (Table 1).

An additional analysis was performed with a series of tests to determine discrepancy between the three sets of beliefs. All of the categories showed statistically significant differences across the three sets of beliefs: general significance of PE, χ²(2) = 555.93, p < 0.001; analysis and planning, χ²(2) = 520.24, p < 0.001; implementation of PE, χ²(2) = 722.33, p < 0.001; management and monitoring, χ²(2) = 525.33, p < 0.001. The post hoc analysis for categories between the importance that educators attached to them and the desired level of competence was conducted using a series of Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. Bonferroni correction was applied, resulting in a significance level set at p < 0.025. The test showed no statistically significant difference in analysis and planning, Z = -1.62, p = 0.105; or management and monitoring, Z = -0.54, p = 0.590. In the category of analysis and planning, the percentage of early childhood educators who expressed their desired level to be below (36%), above (42%), or at the same level (22%) as the importance of the competencies was equally distributed. Similar findings were observed for the category of management and monitoring (36%, 38%, and 26%, respectively). However, there was a statistically significant difference in the importance of the competencies versus the desired level of competencies in general significance of PE, Z = -5.51, p < 0.001 and implementation of PE, Z = -2.86, p = 0.004. The percentages of early childhood educators who expressed their desired level to be below, above, or at the same level in general significance of PE and implementation of PE were 24%, 58%, and 18% and 30%, 48%, and 22%, respectively. Most of the respondents reported that they would like to improve in knowledge, skills, and attitudes regarding the general significance of PE (58%) and the implementation of PE (48%).

The Wilcoxon signed-rank tests with Bonferroni correction (p < 0.025) revealed statistically significant differences for all categories between the current level and the desired level of qualification: general significance of PE, χ²(2) = -11.26, p < 0.001; analysis and planning, χ²(2) = -11.10, p < 0.001; implementation of PE, χ²(2) = -10.95, p < 0.001; management and monitoring, χ²(2) = -11.05, p < 0.001. More than 87% of all early childhood educators expressed the desire to improve in the current level of all competencies, and the majority (91%) of them expressed a desire to improve in the general significance of PE. The mean values of the top-rated (Table 2) as well as the lowest-rated (Table 3) belief statements indicated the need for improvement in several competencies.

Table 2.

Mean values (standard deviation) for top-rated belief statements concerning competencies needed to teach physical education (PE) in early childhood education and care.

	General significance of PE	Analysis and planning	Implementation	Management and monitoring
Importance	3.56 (0.65) Understanding health aspects of PE	3.77 (0.47) Understanding physical and motor development of children	3.54 (0.55) Qualification for using various teaching methods	3.68 (0.52) Understanding PE curricula
Current	2.91 (0.60) Understanding health aspects of PE	3.10 (0.52) Understanding physical and motor development of children	2.97 (0.55) Qualification for using various teaching methods	3.30 (0.57) Understanding PE curricula
Desired	3.51 (0.59) Understanding health aspects of PE	3.64 (0.54) Understanding physical and motor development of children	3.53 (0.58) Qualification for using various teaching methods	3.61 (0.55) Understanding PE curricula

Table 3.

Mean values (standard deviation) for bottom-rated belief statements concerning competencies needed to teach physical education (PE) in early childhood education and care.

	General significance of PE	Analysis and planning	Implementation	Management and monitoring
Importance	2.58 (0.68) Understanding philosophical, historical, cultural aspects of PE	3.20 (0.60) Qualification for motor abilities and skills assessment	3.16 (0.63) Qualification for effective conveying of theoretical content in PE	3.24 (0.69) Qualification for encouraging children for extracurricular sport activities
Current	2.25 (0.62) Understanding biomechanical aspects of motor skills	2.56 (0.63) Qualification for motor abilities and skills assessment	2.61 (0.61) Qualification for effective conveying of theoretical content in PE	2.46 (0.65) Qualification for special pedagogical approaches
Desired	3.04 (0.66) Understanding philosophical, historical, cultural aspects of PE	3.29 (0.58) Understanding social circumstances	3.29 (0.57) Organisational ability and knowledge for implementation of curricular and extracurricular motor content	3.34 (0.63) Qualification for encouraging children for extracurricular sport activities

A list of top-rated belief statements showed unified results from the perspective of importance, current and desired levels of qualification (Table 2). Early childhood educators believe that they are the most qualified in the competencies that they perceive as the most important for effectively executing PE content. These competencies include knowledge linked with health aspects of PE and physical and motor development of children and knowledge and skills for using various teaching methods and understanding PE curricula. We can speculate that these are the competencies of PE in ECEC mostly taught during the study programmes at the universities according to the course syllabi. Additionally, we can, in part, attribute highly perceived importance of the health aspects of PE to ongoing public health discourses of physical activity. We can also speculate that early childhood educators feel that they are responsible for applying topical practices because we noted (Table 2) that they would like to improve the most in the aforementioned competencies that are in accordance with the study programmes (with the assumption that they offer topical knowledge) and public discourse (with the assumption that physical activity affects health).

A list of the lowest-rated belief statements (Table 3) shows a discrepancy between the importance and current and desired levels of qualification. Only qualification for motor abilities and skills assessment and qualification for effective conveying of theoretical content in PE overlap between the importance and current state and understanding philosophical, historical, cultural aspects of PE and qualification for encouraging children for extracurricular sport activities overlap between the importance and desired level. There is no clear picture of which competencies are believed to be the least important for early childhood educators and are simultaneously of least importance to them in their professional development.

Discussion

Early childhood is the stage at which education can most effectively influence children’s physical, cognitive, mental/emotional, social, and spiritual development (Petrie and Clarkin-Phillips, 2017). In Slovenia, more than 75% of all preschool children (11 months to 6 years) participate in ECEC and spend more than 35 hours per week in ECEC settings (Eurydice, 2014; Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, 2015), which aim to create a stimulating environment that will influence their holistic development. Early childhood educators (core practitioners) with a bachelor’s degree are required in both age groups of ECEC. The 2011 Communication from the European Commission on ECEC states that early childhood educators’ competencies are key to quality ECEC (Eurydice, 2014). The diversity of the children and the high expectations of parents require continuous reflection on ECEC practice and early childhood educators’ competencies. This research, therefore, focused on early childhood educators with particular attention to their self-reported beliefs about PE competencies.

Social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1977; Gebbie et al., 2012; Stipek and Byler, 1997) affirms the positive and strong correlation between educators’ beliefs in their competencies and teaching practice. Belief systems guide educators’ decisions when teaching. Therefore, it is important to include the educators’ self-evaluations in the examination of PE competencies. According to the results, beliefs regarding management and monitoring were rated as the most important. The implementation of PE and analysis and planning were rated as less important, and the general significance of PE was rated least important (Table 1). Additionally, the results showed that the self-reported current level of early childhood educators’ competencies is relatively high and ranges from 2.57 to 2.86 using a four-level scale. However, educators reported that they would like to improve this value to at least 3.28. Most of the respondents reported that they would like to improve in competencies regarding the implementation of PE and general significance of PE.

Management and monitoring

The educators considered competencies regarding management and monitoring to be the most important. The duties of the educators usually include designing and facilitating safe and developmentally appropriate activities in the context of the PE curriculum. Understanding PE curricula is the highest valued competency in the management and monitoring category at all three levels (importance, current and desired). The Slovenian Curriculum for Kindergartens (Bahovec et al., 1999) and its supplement Child in Kindergarten (Marjanovic Umek et al., 2008) present theoretical and practical guidelines for work with children in kindergarten within different fields of learning, including in PE. The low-rated competency of encouraging children for extracurricular sport activities indicates a very focused use of the learning outcomes defined in the curriculum. Although it is important that early childhood educators understand and follow the curriculum and its supplement, the objective to fulfil narrow learning outcomes can, in our opinion, decrease educators’ autonomy and consequently their efficiency. According to the Kindergarten Act (2005), an early childhood educator is an expert who supports parents in bringing up their children, improves the quality of family life and helps develop children’s potential. To execute this mission, early childhood educators need to apply not only learning outcomes but also the principles stated in the curriculum. For example, according to the principle of cooperation with the local community, kindergartens are expected to cooperate with other local settings (e.g. sport clubs), and according to the principle of equilibrium, kindergartens are expected to encourage the development of special abilities that children possess (e.g. motor abilities). Thus, for early childhood educators to encourage children to participate in extracurricular sport activities, it would be desirable to possess competencies to employ this practice. One can assume that early childhood educators like to lean only on the learning outcomes because it gives them a sense of security. The belief in the lesser importance of competencies in the analysing and planning category where the autonomy of educators is most evident (e.g. selection of PE content) indicates that the learning outcome approach could be true. Additionally, the educators’ objectives to fulfil narrow curriculum goals or learning outcomes can lead to a curtailing of the children’s right to choose physical activities that are aligned with their interests (Petrie and Clarkin-Phillips, 2017; Wood, 2014).

Analysing and planning

The Slovenian Curriculum for Kindergartens (Bahovec et al., 1999) is focused on structured PE activities aimed at learning fundamental movement skills and developing motor abilities as well as unstructured play and holistic strategies of child development. Both elements of the curriculum require educators to possess a thorough understanding of the physical and motor development of children, which was rated as the most important competency in the analysis and planning category. Educators stated that their current level of understanding the physical and motor development of children is the highest in this category of competencies. They also expressed a desire to improve in this competency. Understanding the physical and motor development as part of a broader (social, cognitive, etc.) development is crucial not only for planning developmentally appropriate pedagogical approaches but also for developmentally appropriate activity selection. The curriculum and other professional literature (Gallahue and Ozmun, 2006; Meggitt, 2007) can serve as a guide to identify milestones in children’s physical and motor development. In practice, to use developmentally appropriate activity, the knowledge to assess motor abilities and skills is necessary. Early childhood educators rated this knowledge as the lowest competency in the analysing and planning category according to its importance and current level of qualification. Similarly, in primary school, teachers find that assessment in PE is the most difficult aspect of their role and the area in which they feel the least competent (Morgan and Hansen, 2007). According to the general didactic theory, planning must be done on the grounds of prior analysis to consider the children’s individual potential and characteristics (Blazic et al., 2003). The analysis is usually performed using different assessment approaches that can: (a) hold early childhood educators accountable for providing effective educational programmes; (b) accurately identify children who need special educational services; (c) evaluate trends in service provision, utilisation, and quality; and (d) provide information to educators regarding the children’s capabilities that can be used to guide programmes that facilitate child learning and development (Bagnato, 2005; Downs and Strand, 2006). The last approach can be performed using norm-referenced standardised measures, teacher rating and work sampling, as well as curriculum-based assessment and measurement (Downs and Strand, 2006). Because the question asked was not sufficiently accurate, we can suppose that educators thought they were being asked about assessment referring to norm-referenced standardised measures. These are most commonly known to educators but are not favourable to them in practice because of the lack of functional information they offer. Another possible explanation is that educators favour child-centred educational practice to skill-based practice. Child-centred teaching involves more child-directed activities (free play) in contrast to skill-based practice, which involves more teacher-directed and task-sequenced teaching (Stipek and Byler, 1997). If educators believe that children direct their motor activities according to their motor abilities and motor skills, then we could understand why they might have rated the need for qualification to assess children’s motor abilities and skills as less important. Further research is warranted to make a more valid conclusion on this matter.

Implementation of PE

The results showed that implementation of PE is also important for educators and that they want to improve their current level of knowledge and skills. The curriculum for kindergarten offers a wide range of PE activities. With respect to teaching that facilitates children’s physical and motor development, early childhood educators need to be competent in teaching methods that enable them to convey the required information to children (e.g. demonstrating). Educators should consider children’s capabilities and types of learning preferences when teaching. Our results demonstrated that this important part of PE implementation is highly rated among early childhood educators. Breslin et al. (2012) showed that children taught by teachers with additional training in PE implementation (fundamental movement skills) scored higher on self-perception and on core motor competencies compared to children whose teachers had not received such training. In ECEC, practical demonstration accompanied by mentioning learning cues is the most efficient teaching method (Magill, 2010; Masser, 1987). This method is particularly applicable in the context of complex movement skills such as swimming, skiing, ice-skating, and rollerblading. In the policy context, these are enrichment activities, which kindergartens organise periodically and which depend on the kindergartens’ curriculum, the children’s interests, and the parents’ requests (Ministry of Education and Sport, 2007). These activities are planned and conducted by the early childhood educators (at times with the aid of outside providers if that raises the quality of the programme) within the standard education curriculum. For enrichment activities, parents can be charged only if they are conducted outside the kindergarten premises (e.g. a ski centre) and require additional costs (e.g. a ski pass). Kindergartens are not allowed to additionally charge for educators’ services. However, such activities can be organised beyond the standard curriculum (as extracurricular activities) and are part of a fast-developing industry of commercially provided enrichment opportunities, not accessible to all children. Parents’ expectations that enrichment activities will be offered by kindergartens within the standard education curriculum raise the need for high-qualified educators in PE.

We can speculate that, apart from the economic benefits, other reasons for parents’ expectations are satisfaction with the services that are provided by kindergartens and time saving. Parents view kindergarten and school in a national and international context as a safe environment, which they trust and to which children are accustomed (Holloway and Pimlott-Wilson, 2014; Marjanovic Umek et al., 2005). In the parents’ opinion, enrichment activities can also create a positive attitude towards kindergarten and school as children come to associate school with fun activities (Holloway and Pimlott-Wilson, 2014). Services provided by one institution can save parents time, as managing various extracurricular activities provided by leisure centres, sports clubs, etc. could be very time consuming. Participation in extracurricular activities has increased the demand for chauffeuring children (Tillberg Mattsson, 2002) and the emergence of a ‘backseat generation’ of children (Karsten, 2005). Presumably, parents’ awareness that more kindergartens offer enrichment activities has resulted in other kindergartens following suit. In many cases, early childhood educators are a better-quality choice compared to outside providers offering such extracurricular activities (Petrie and Clarkin-Phillips, 2017; Wood, 2014). We can speculate that early childhood educators with a bachelor’s degree have a greater understanding of developmentally appropriate pedagogical approaches compared to outside providers and can therefore apply principles of inclusion, individualisation, and differentiation. The outside providers in Slovenia offer extracurricular programmes that are usually run by staff who completed 40 to 130 hours of specialised training (Council for Sport, 2004) and are thus less educated and qualified compared to early childhood educators with a bachelor’s degree. This deficiency in outside providers’ competencies may lead to what Wood (2014) conceptualises as a technicist/policy-driven mode of play–pedagogy. The technicist/policy-driven mode results in the fulfilment of narrow learning outcomes that can lead to curtailment of the children’s right to choose activities aligned with their interests. The deficiency in outside providers’ competencies may also lead to practices that are suited for adults rather than children. This inappropriate practice is described by Petrie and Clarkin-Phillips (2017), who indicated that many of the outside providers in New Zealand do not make explicit links to the curriculum in their programmes and are more interested in presenting a more specialised focus to the programme that might be framed as an adult model of participation with skill-based drills that reflect coach-directed approaches.

Physical education in ECEC worldwide is mostly grounded on practical physical activity and development. Thus, the results that pointed out the qualification for effective conveying of theoretical content in PE as bottom-rated competency were expected. It is possible that educators associate the mediation of theoretical content with skill-based (also adult-led, structured) educational practice. In contrast to skill-based educational practice, child-centred educational practice promotes child-initiated activities (and free play). Spidell Rusher et al. (1992) found that early childhood educators tend to believe that child-centred educational practices are more appropriate than skill-based educational practices. More recent literature (McEvilly, 2012) also determined that some of the early childhood educators were reticent about the notion of structured, adult-led PE. However, McEvilly (2012) emphasised that the notions of free play and adult-led activities regarding PE should not be conceptualised dichotomously but rather in terms of a continuum. She noted that free play usually involves adult input and that adult-led activities usually feature elements of choices and freedom. If both educational practices were understood in this way, it would be easier to overcome frequent practitioners’ conception that formal teaching situations in PE are incompatible with giving children choices and freedom.

General significance of PE

Understanding health aspects of PE was rated as the most important belief statement in the general significance of the PE category. This result is in accordance with a study conducted by Petrie and Clarkin-Phillips (2017), which determined that early childhood educators feel a responsibility for enhancing pre-schoolers’ physical health in accordance with public health discourses.

Excess weight and obesity have been acknowledged as one of the most significant contributors to ill health (Kopelman, 2000; World Health Organization, 1998, 2007). A study conducted by the Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative on overweight and obesity in 6- to 9-year-old children showed a 16.5% prevalence of being overweight (including obesity) in Slovenia for 6-year-old boys and an 18.3% prevalence of being overweight for 6-year-old girls according to the International Obesity Task Force definition (Wijnhoven et al., 2014). A national 12-year prospective cohort study (Starc and Strel, 2011) that used height, weight, body mass index, and triceps skinfold thickness as measures for excess weight and obesity showed that 40% of males and 48% of females who were obese at the age of 18 had already been obese at the age of 7.

The impact of physical activity on health has been a central point of debate in the media and in academic literature for many years. Although the nature of the enhancing contributions that PE is supposed to have on health remains unclear, a review article by Bailey et al. (2009) indicated that PE can contribute to physical activity levels both during childhood and later in life and has the potential to affect an individual’s health. The review also stressed that health benefits do not result from participation per se but are likely to be mediated by the nature of the interactions between children and their teachers.

The global pursuit of health-enhancing physical activity in childhood and adolescence seems to have influenced early childhood educators. The promotion of physical activity is also evident in many Slovenian kindergartens. In response to the high rate of overweight children in Slovenia, many kindergartens have analysed the situation and prepared different intervention programmes to increase preventative efforts (Grujic, 2014; Zajec et al., 2010). Whether or not these interventions contribute to the establishment of health-related behaviours in childhood and later in life cannot be confirmed because there is a lack of currently available studies. In the future, it will be necessary to examine whether the knowledge and practices used by the early childhood educators in Slovenia for promoting physical activity are appropriate and provide desirable results.

Conclusion

This study aimed to examine the beliefs about knowledge, skills, and abilities in the learning area of PE among Slovenian early childhood educators. These educators expressed desires to improve in all competencies that are needed to teach PE, especially the knowledge, skills, and abilities related to the implementation of PE and the general significance of PE. Notably, the educators would like to improve various teaching methods and understand health aspects of PE. Additionally, understanding the physical and motor development of children and understanding PE curricula were identified as competencies of high importance in which educators would like to improve their existing level of knowledge. To summarise, educators would like to improve their knowledge, skills and abilities that enable them to effectively implement PE to promote children’s healthy development.

The expectations for early childhood educators are changing: educators are asked to plan their activities, teach in increasingly multicultural groups, integrate children with special needs, use different teaching methods, evaluate children’s efforts, and motivate parents to participate in kindergartens’ activities. The gap between the importance, current and desired levels of competencies and beliefs about PE is an important message not only to the policy-makers in Slovenia but also in the EU, who aim to create a unitary ECEC in which similar qualifications for early childhood educators are needed (Lindeboom and Buiskool, 2013). In the context of analysis and planning, the statements of early childhood educators indicated that some of them might not see themselves as educators who would employ adult-led, structured activities but rather as supervisors of child-directed activities. In this sense, their educational role to help children achieve physical activity goals, encourage them to participate in extracurricular activities, and help them become independent participants in physical activities is hindered. Reflection is needed on the part of policy-makers to adjust ECEC study programmes that will satisfy the educational and caring demands of ECEC and design a sophisticated system of CPD programmes. These programmes should focus on the implementation of PE with the objective for practitioners to gain the appropriate knowledge, understanding and behavioural skills to ensure that physical activity becomes a regular part of children’s daily life (Fairclough and Stratton, 2005). It is possible that the lack of policy, curriculum development or teacher expertise in the PE area contributes to the considerable variation in pedagogical practice and understanding of early childhood educators’ role within PE. However, we acknowledge that additional data collection and analysis regarding this matter must be conducted.

The limitations of this study include the considerable differences in the organisation and content of PE curricula and training systems worldwide; therefore, readers should be careful when generalising and applying the study’s findings to different countries. As we predefined the scale of the answers in the questionnaire, the respondents were not able to contribute their own opinions on PE in ECEC. Other points to consider are the length of the questionnaire and the interest span of the participants. The time needed to complete the questionnaire was approximately 25 minutes; consequently, only a portion of the early childhood educators appeared to be sufficiently interested in completing the questionnaire.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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