Influence of a physical education teacher’s perceived age on high school pupils’ perceptions of effectiveness and learning

Abstract

Few studies have focused on the issues older physical education (PE) teachers encounter which may limit their effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of a PE teacher’s apparent age on high school pupils’ learning and perceptions of the teacher. Participants were 114 ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade pupils. They were randomly assigned to watch one of two virtually identical filmed swimming lessons taught by the same teacher. In the young-appearance lesson, the teacher taught as his normal and relatively youthful self. In the middle-aged lesson (MAL), his appearance had been aged by a theatrical makeup artist. Following the viewing of their assigned lesson, pupils completed an examination over lesson content and a questionnaire asking them about their perceptions of the teacher. Inferential statistical tests indicated that the pupils who watched the MAL perceived the teacher more favorably. Performance on the content examination was similar for pupils who watched either film. These findings provided support for a psychological/developmental explanation of how and why pupils respond to and learn from PE teachers of different ages.

Keywords

Physical education aging effectiveness high school

Introduction

Research across subjects in the 1970s revealed that teachers’ attire, competence, preference, and physical appearance affected how pupils perceived teachers’ ability to teach (Chaikin et al., 1978; Feshbach and Feshbach, 1972; Landers and Landers, 1973; Molloy, 1975). Consequently, some scholars suggested that an area worthy of sport pedagogy researchers examining was the potential for physical education (PE) teachers’ appearance to mediate their impact on pupils (Cardinal, 2001). The limited amount of research conducted in this line to date began with an examination of the effect of PE teachers’ body composition on pupils’ perceptions and learning (Dean et al., 2005; Melville and Maddalozzo, 1988; Thomson, 1997). This research indicated that pupils perceived relatively lean and fit physical educators to be more competent than those who appeared to be relatively fat and unfit. In addition, pupils learned more from relatively lean and fit teachers than they did from teachers who appeared to be relatively fat and unfit. More recently, McKown et al. (in press) found that fourth grade pupils were more active during lessons taught by an apparently fit teacher than those taught by an apparently overweight teacher. Findings for sixth grade pupils in this study, however, were reversed.

During a second series of studies which borrowed greatly from the design employed in the Melville and Maddalozzo (1988) body composition study, Bryant and Curtner-Smith (2008, 2009a, 2009b) investigated the influence of a teacher’s perceived disability on pupils’ learning and perceptions of the teacher. In each of the three studies, groups of pupils were randomly assigned to watch one of two films of a teacher teaching the same swimming lesson. In the first film, the teacher taught as her non-disabled self. In the second film, she taught in a wheelchair, thus giving the impression that she had a disability. Having viewed either film, pupils were tested over the content of the lesson and asked about their perceptions of the teacher. In the original study, elementary pupils who viewed the apparently disabled teacher outscored those who watched the non-disabled teacher on the test. There were, however, no differences in how pupils who watched either film perceived the teacher (Bryant and Curtner-Smith, 2008). During the second study, there were no differences in learning or perceptions of the teacher between the groups of middle school pupils who viewed either film (Bryant and Curtner-Smith, 2009a). Finally, in the third study, while high school pupils who viewed either film perceived the teacher to be of a similarly high quality, those who viewed the film of the non-disabled teacher did significantly better on the test than those who viewed the film of the apparently disabled teacher (Bryant and Curtner-Smith, 2009b). Collectively, Bryant and Curtner-Smith (2008, 2009a, 2009b) argued that these findings were evidence of pupils being socialized into believing that sport, physical activity, and PE were for persons with whole and fit bodies.

In the current study, our goal was to expand on the work of those who studied body composition (Dean et al., 2005; McKown et al., in press; Melville and Maddalozzo, 1988; Thomson, 1997) and Bryant and Curtner-Smith’s (2008, 2009a, 2009b) work on disability. Given that the average age of US teachers is 42.5 years, that 56% of them are over the age of 40, and that in general the teaching profession in the USA is aging (Snyder et al., 2016), the purpose of the study was to examine the influence of a PE teacher’s apparent age on high school pupils’ learning and perceptions of the teacher.

Theoretical perspectives

The two oppositional theoretical perspectives developed by Bryant and Curtner-Smith (2008, 2009a, 2009b) were also employed during this study. Based on the work of a number of scholars (Bandura, 1986, 2002; Coakley, 2007; Gergen and Gergen, 2003; Michalko, 2002; Oliver, 1990; Thomson, 1997), the first of these, the sociological perspective, hypothesizes that pupils’ beliefs about the optimal appearance of PE teachers are socially constructed. From this perspective, as pupils age, they are increasingly likely to prefer younger PE teachers over older ones and learn more from them having been socialized into believing that PE, sport, and physical activity are for younger persons through their interactions with mainstream culture. By contrast, the sociological perspective suggests that younger pupils are less likely to be biased against older PE teachers and so learn more from them having not yet received the same degree of negative socialization as their older peers.

The second and alternative psychological/developmental perspective developed by Bryant and Curtner-Smith, (2008, 2009a, 2009b) was, in part, extrapolated from and based on a reversal of the “Pygmalion effect” (Martinek, 1981; Martinek et al., 1982; Trouilloud et al., 2002) which indicated that the quality of PE teachers’ interactions with pupils was influenced by the teachers’ perceptions of pupils’ physical attractiveness. From this perspective, relatively immature younger pupils are likely to prefer younger PE teachers over older ones and learn more from them having not yet accepted that PE teachers of all ages can be effective. In contrast, the psychological/developmental perspective suggests that as pupils age and mature they come to realize that teachers of all ages can be effective and so have less bias against older teachers and learn more from them. Prior educational research across all subjects supports the sociological over the psychological/developmental perspective in terms of how pupils are likely to respond to a physical educator’s age. Results of this research revealed that elementary and middle school pupils and college-aged pupils were biased in favor of younger teachers (Arbuckle and Williams, 2003; Goebel and Cashen, 1979; Joye and Wilson, 2015; Peterson, 1980; Sohr-Preston et al., 2016). Research conducted outside of education also suggests that of the two theoretical perspectives described in the previous paragraphs, the sociological perspective is more accurate. Studies have revealed that children, youth, and adults have negative views about older peoples’ capabilities (Corbin et al., 1987; Laney et al., 1999; Levy, 2003; Saxena and Shukla, 2016) and the features of their faces (Burt and Perrett, 1995; Ebner et al., 2010; Kiiski et al., 2016; Langlois et al., 2000; Todorov et al., 2015). Research has also suggested that very young children have a bias in favor of younger people and that this bias increases as children move into pre-adolescence (Corbin et al., 1987; Couper et al., 1995; Fullmer, 1984; Laney et al., 1999) and adolescence (Carstensen et al., 1982; Kastenbaum, 1964; Sum et al., 2016).

Finally, two earlier studies (Pennington et al., in press a, in press b) carried out in PE also suggested that the sociological perspective is more likely to be accurate than the psychological/developmental perspective. Specifically, it was found that elementary and middle school pupils learned more from an apparently younger teacher than an apparently older teacher. Further, both elementary and middle school pupils also perceived the younger teacher more positively than the older teacher.

Despite the findings of previous research strongly suggesting that the sociological perspective was likely to be more accurate in terms of explaining the current study’s findings, it was our belief that the psychological/developmental perspective might provide a viable lens for making meaning of what we discovered. Specifically, we thought that a combination of both perspectives might provide a deeper and more complete explanation of how children and youth from elementary to high school react to physical educators of different ages.

Method

Participants

Participants were 114 ninth (ages 14 to 15 years), tenth (ages 15 to 16 years), eleventh (ages 16 to 17 years), and twelfth (ages 17 to 19 years) grade pupils attending two high schools typical of the southeastern USA (i.e. the schools did not have a special focus and followed the state curriculum). Pupils and their parents were required to sign assent and consent forms prior to the study commencing. Both schools catered for pupils from predominantly low-income families. The vast majority of pupils at school 1 were African American (98.30%). The remaining pupils were White (1.00%), Hispanic (0.60%), and of mixed or undetermined race (0.10%). The school’s two PE teachers were aged 34 and 36 years, respectively. Their class sizes ranged from 25 to 40 pupils. The majority of the pupils attending school 2 were also African American (58.00%). The rest of the pupils were White (36.40%), Hispanic (2.70%), Asian (2.50%), Native American (0.20%), and Pacific Islander (0.10%). Three PE teachers were employed at school 2. They were aged 43, 49, and 56 years of age, respectively. They taught classes ranging from 20 to 25 pupils in size. The teachers at both schools primarily employed the multi-activity curriculum model and traditional pedagogies (i.e. Mosston and Ashworth’s (2008) reproductive or direct styles) to teach sports, games, and physical activities. In addition, teachers at both schools also taught health-related fitness. Swimming was not part of the curriculum at either school. Moreover, swimming was a minor sport in the local community, not engaged in by children and youth from low-income families (Susnara et al., 2018).

Lesson films

Replicating the protocol used by Bryant and Curtner-Smith (2009a), a 20-minute lesson on the techniques and strategies of front crawl was designed for high school pupils able to swim but with limited experience of doing so. In congruence with Bryant and Curtner-Smith’s (2009b) rationale, swimming was chosen as the subject matter because it was technical in nature and had the potential to hold the pupils’ interest since it was unlikely that they had experienced formal swimming instruction prior to the study. The lesson included the following elements: (a) warm-up; (b) drills and practices designed to improve front crawl body position, breathing, leg-kick, arm pull, and full stroke; and (c) a closure during which pupils were questioned about the techniques and strategies covered in the lesson. As well as descriptions of the various tasks in which pupils engaged, teaching points and key phrases used by the teacher were included in the lesson plan.

The lesson was taught twice to the same 10 pupils by the first author in a 25-yard indoor pool. The pupils were college students and resembled older high school pupils when in the water. On both occasions the lessons were filmed so that the first author was shown organizing, presenting tasks, and providing feedback. As shown in Figure 1 (left photograph), when teaching the young-appearance lesson (YAL), the first author’s appearance was as it usually was—that of a clean shaven, relatively young, 28-year-old. Furthermore, his clothes were those usually associated with younger PE teachers (i.e. tennis shoes, a short-sleeved collared shirt, and knee-length shorts). Also shown in Figure 1 (right photograph), when teaching the middle-aged lesson (MAL), the first author appeared to be much older. Specifically, he was bearded and had been aged by a theatrical make-up artist. Moreover, he wore clothing usually associated with older PE teachers (i.e. tennis shoes, a long-sleeved shirt, and full-length khaki trousers). The aging process took approximately 60 minutes and began with the application of a primer foundation, latex, and scar wax which altered the texture of the first author’s face and neck and re-shaped his jawline and the bridge of his nose. Next, grey streaks were added to the first author’s hair and beard; crow’s feet to the corners of his eyes; liver spots to his cheeks, forehead, chin and nose; and blush to his cheeks so as to discolor his skin and create shadows under his eyes.

Figure 1.

Teacher appearance in the young-appearance lesson (left photograph) and middle-aged lesson (right photograph).

Lesson similarity, quality, and credibility

Prior to and during data collection, we employed several methods to establish that the YAL and MAL were similar, of high instructional quality, and credible in terms of being taught by an apparently younger and older teacher. Following Bryant and Curtner-Smith (2009b), the similarity of the YAL and MAL was evaluated by coding both filmed lessons with three forms of systematic observation. First, the films were coded with the Physical Education Teacher Assessment Instrument (PETAI; Phillips et al., 1986) for the percentage of time the first author used five instructional and five managerial behaviors and the percentage of time in which the pupils engaged in skill learning. Second, the films were coded with the Instrument for Identifying Teaching Styles (IFITS, Curtner-Smith et al., 2001), an interval recording instrument that was used to estimate the percentage of time in which the first author employed the original eight teaching styles described by Mosston (1981) or managed the class. Third, the number of instructional tasks in which pupils engaged in each lesson was recorded, as was their duration and type.

Results of this coding are shown in Table 1. They indicate that the lessons were virtually identical and that the first author taught effectively. Specifically, he spent a low proportion of time managing pupils and a high percentage of time instructing them. Further, the pupils were engaged in skill learning for the majority of the lessons. Congruent with his teaching goals, the main teaching style employed by the first author in both lessons was the practice style. Finally, the majority of the tasks in which pupils engaged within both lessons were designed to improve their techniques and comprehension of strategies.

Table 1.

Percentages of time spent by the teacher with his pupils in various behaviors, teaching styles, and tasks during the young-appearance lesson (YAL) and middle-aged lesson (MAL).

Instrument	YAL	MAL
Physical Education Teacher Assessment Instrument
Planned presentation	45.55	46.83
Response presentation	10.39	12.42
Monitoring	30.96	29.47
Performance feedback	1.80	2.07
Motivational feedback	2.69	2.72
Beginning/ending class	6.45	4.89
Equipment management	0.00	0.00
Organization	2.16	1.60
Behavior management	0.00	0.00
Total instruction	91.41	93.79
Total management	8.59	6.21
Engaged skill learning time	25.94	27.36
Instrument for Identifying Teaching Styles
Reproductive styles
Style A (Command)	0.00	0.00
Style B (Practice)	95.68	96.04
Style C (Reciprocal)	0.00	0.00
Style D (Self-check)	0.00	0.00
Style E (Inclusion)	0.00	0.00
Productive styles
Style F (Guided Discovery)	0.00	0.00
Style G (Divergent)	0.00	0.00
Style H (Going Beyond)	0.00	0.00
Management	4.32	3.96
Task analysis
Warm-up	8.21	8.43
Leg kick	19.58	16.41
Arm action	25.69	30.96
Breathing	29.89	28.75
Full stroke	11.37	11.17
Closure	5.26	4.28

Having completed the coding, we carried out additional checks for evidence that the YAL and MAL were virtually identical. Specifically, we compared the overall average proportions between the YAL and MAL for each instrument (i.e. PETAI, IFITS, and task analysis). All of these differences were small and not statistically significant (p ≥ 0.10). Further, we compared proportions between lessons for the individual items within each instrument for which we observed non-zero differences between the two lessons while adjusting for multiple comparisons using a Bonferroni procedure. Each of these differences were also non-significant (p ≥ 0.24). Collectively, these findings indicated that there were no significant differences between the YAL and MAL.

The credibility of the lessons was established by requiring the pupils who took part in the study and saw either the MAL or YAL to indicate in writing the age they thought the teacher they had viewed to be. They were not permitted to confer while completing this task. These data were compared using an independent t-test. According to the pupils who viewed the YAL, the mean age of the teacher was 22.82 years (standard deviation (SD) = 9.22). According to the pupils who watched the MAL, however, the mean age of the teacher was 41.61 years (SD = 11.35). The t-test indicated that these ages were significantly different, t(112) = -14.61, p < 0.001 and that the first author looked significantly younger in the YAL and significantly older in the MAL. An assessment of the lessons’ quality was made by a panel of three sport pedagogy experts. Having viewed the films of the YAL and MAL, they were of the opinion that the teacher displayed good content knowledge and pedagogical skill, and that his level of enthusiasm was high in both films.

Procedure

Viewing lessons

Groups of 20 to 30 pupils were randomly assigned to view the film of either the YAL or MAL simultaneously and in separate rooms. Prior to watching their assigned lesson, pupils were notified that directly following the viewing they would be tested over the lesson content and asked about their perceptions of the teacher.

Content examination

Immediately after viewing their assigned lesson, pupils took a 12-question multiple choice examination developed by Bryant and Curtner-Smith (2009b) over the content taught during the lesson (see Appendix A). This examination was evaluated as having good content validity in a previous study (Bryant and Curtner-Smith, 2009b). Six of the questions in the content examination were concerned with swimming technique and six with swimming strategies. The content examination yielded three scores: (a) the number of correct answers on the technique portion; (b) the number of correct answers on the strategy portion; and (c) the total number of correct answers.

Perception questionnaire

Once they finished the content examination, pupils were required to respond to a six-statement questionnaire. This questionnaire was designed and evaluated as possessing good content validity by Bryant and Curtner-Smith (2009b). It was used to determine the degree to which pupils: (a) liked a teacher; (b) believed a teacher was competent; and (c) believed the teacher to be a positive role model (see Appendix B). Two statements in the questionnaire required pupils to rate the teacher’s likeability, two statements required pupils to rate the teacher’s competence, and two statements required pupils to rate the teacher as a role model. Pupils evaluated each statement on a Likert-type scale by deciding whether they strongly agreed (scored 5), agreed (scored 4), were uncertain (scored 3), disagreed (scored 2), or strongly disagreed (scored 1) with each statement. These five choices were illustrated with drawings of facial expressions so as to assist the pupils. The questionnaire yielded three separate scores for perceptions of likeability, competence, and role modeling that ranged from 10 to 2. This was achieved by summing the responses to the two statements that corresponded to each of these perception categories.

Reading level of the content examination and perception questionnaire

The level of reading difficulty the content examination and perception questionnaire posed for high school pupils was previously assessed by Bryant and Curtner-Smith (2009a). Using the Flesch–Kincaid Reading Level test (Kincaid et al, 1975), these authors established that the content examination and perception questionnaire were appropriate for American school grade levels of 5.0 and 5.4, respectively. In addition, the Flesch Reading Ease test (Flesch, 1951) employed by these researchers yielded reading ease scores 74.4 for the content examination and 73.6 for the perception questionnaire, with both scores being out of a possible 100 and higher scores indicating more easily comprehended texts. These data suggested that the high school pupils in the present study would be able to read and comprehend the two documents.

Data analysis

Content examination

Descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations) were computed for all 12 questions in the content examination for the YAL and MAL groups. Descriptive statistics were also computed for the six questions concerned with techniques and the six questions concerned with strategies for the YAL and MAL groups. A 2 × 2 (teacher age × content area) repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was employed, with paired comparison t-test follow-ups in which the Bonferroni method was used to control for multiple comparisons, to determine whether pupils learned more or less about swimming overall, and swimming techniques and strategies, when viewing the MAL or YAL. In congruence with Henkel’s (1976) suggestions regarding early exploratory studies, significance level for this and other inferential statistical tests carried out in this study was p < 0.10.

Perception questionnaire

Descriptive data (means and standard deviations) were computed for each of the three categories on the perception questionnaire (i.e. likeability, competency, and role modeling) for pupils viewing the YAL and pupils viewing the MAL. Independent t-tests, for which the Bonferroni method was used to control for multiple comparisons, were then employed to discover whether or not there were significant differences between the perceptions of pupils who viewed either film.

Results

Content examination

Table 2 shows the descriptive data for the content examination. These data indicate that the pupils’ performance on the entire examination and for the technique and strategy portions of the examination was mediocre regardless of which lesson they watched. Results of the ANOVA test revealed that there was not a significant effect for teacher age, F(1, 112) < 0.001, p = 0.986, η² < 0.001, indicating that the performance on the examination by pupils who watched either lesson was similar. There was, however, a statistically significant but small effect for content area, F(1, 112) = 19.70, p < 0.001, η² = 0.15, indicating that pupils who watched both films did better on the technique portion than on the strategy portion of the examination. Finally, there was not a significant interaction between teacher age and content area F(1,112) = 0.01, p = 0.913, η² < 0.001.

Table 2.

Scores on the content examination and perception questionnaire by pupils who viewed the young-appearance lesson (YAL) and middle-aged lesson (MAL).

	YAL		MAL
Group	Mean (M)	Standard deviation (SD)	M	SD
Total score^a	5.92	2.18	5.95	2.11
Technique score^b	3.32	1.49	3.33	1.24
Strategic score^c	2.60	1.38	2.62	1.32
Liking for the teacher^d	7.91	2.02	8.46	1.57
Mastery of content^d	8.08	1.87	8.08	1.75
Positive role model^d	6.13	2.77	7.84	2.13

Note: ^apossible 12 points; ^bpossible 6 points; ^cpossible 6 points; and ^dLikert scale (strongly agree – 5; and strongly disagree – 1)

Perception questionnaire

Table 2 also shows descriptive data for the perception questionnaire. These data reveal that the pupils’ perceptions of the teacher were relatively high for both groups. Results of the independent t-tests revealed that the pupils who watched the MAL perceived the teacher to be a more positive role model than did those who saw the YAL, t(112) = -3.71, p < 0.001. However, the pupils who watched the MAL did not perceive the teacher to be more likable, t(112) = -1.64, p = 0.103, nor more competent, t(112) = -0.02, p = 0.985, than did those who saw the YAL.

Discussion

The most important finding of this study was that pupils perceived the teacher more favorably in terms of being a role model when he appeared to be middle-aged than when he was much younger. In addition, there were no differences in learning and perceptions of likeability or competence by pupils who watched either film. These findings contradict those of earlier studies of elementary and middle school pupils using the same design (Pennington et al., in press a, in press b). Recall that in these studies, it was found that pupils learned more from an apparently younger teacher than an apparently older teacher and that pupils perceived the younger teacher more positively than the older teacher.

The results of the current study also conflict with the bulk of the research on the perceptions of age inside (e.g. Arbuckle and Williams, 2003; Joye and Wilson, 2015; Sohr-Preston et al., 2016) and outside (e.g. Kiiski et al., 2016; Levy, 2003; Saxena and Shukla, 2016; Sum et al., 2016; Todorov et al., 2015) education which also indicated a bias against older teachers and people. Finally, the results of this study are oppositional to most of those from the series of studies on the influences of a physical educator’s apparent fitness (Dean et al., 2005; McKown et al., in press; Melville and Maddalozzo, 1988; Thomson, 1997) and apparent disability (Bryant and Curtner-Smith, 2008, 2009a, 2009b) on pupils’ perceptions and learning. Recall that these studies suggested that pupils were biased against teachers with physical characteristics that society mostly viewed negatively (i.e. being overweight or disabled).

That the pupils in this study appeared to have a perceptional bias against a younger-appearing teacher is obviously worrying. Ideally, of course, pupils would judge teachers based on their performance, on what they learn, and not on their appearance. Nevertheless, the fact that there was not a bias against the older teacher gives rise to some cautious optimism and suggests that those hiring physical educators to work in high schools need have no qualms about older teachers’ effectiveness.

Coupled with the results of the two earlier studies of the same design (Pennington et al., in press a, in press b), and as we had hypothesized, the findings of the current study also suggest that rather than one or the other of Bryant and Curtner-Smith’s (2008, 2009a, 2009b) competing theories being accurate, they both play a part in explaining how pupils respond to and learn from PE teachers of different ages. Specifically, our series of studies suggests that elementary (Pennington et al., in press a) and middle (Pennington et al., in press b) school pupils are indeed socialized into favoring younger teachers by the prevailing culture created by persons significant in their lives and societal institutions. At these two stages, then, the sociological perspective best explains why pupils perceive and learn from teachers of different ages as they do. By high school (i.e. the current study), however, the series also suggests that pupils may have the psychological maturity to overcome these biases. In other words, at this latter stage, the psychological/developmental perspective best explains pupils’ responses to younger and older physical educators.

Our conclusions and attempts at modifying theory are made very tentatively and we acknowledge that much more research is needed to confirm or refute many of the points we make in the preceding paragraphs. Such research would obviously involve replicating the current study with other samples and in other parts of the United States. We would also suggest that researchers conduct studies aimed at discovering pupils’ perceptions of and the degree to which they learn from apparently younger and older female PE teachers. We suspect that the bias against older female physical educators might be greater and more persistent than for older males. This is because previous research has revealed a double standard of the aging process in which the effect of aging on men’s appearance is perceived less negatively than its impact on the appearance of women (Halliwell and Dittmar, 2003). Similar studies in cultures where age is viewed as positive and even revered would also be enlightening, as would studies where the content is varied. For example, it might be that when older physical educators teach content associated with older people they are perceived more favorably than when they teach content associated with younger people. Studies of pupils’ perceptions of apparently older and younger teachers teaching a variety of subjects, including PE, might also be helpful. The sociological perspective suggests that biases against older teachers may be less significant, non-existent, or even reversed when they teach subjects perceived and labeled as “academic.” In addition, researchers must also attempt to conduct more ecologically valid experiments than ours, even if the trade-off is much reduced internal validity. Specifically, this would be achieved by requiring the pupils being studied to experience lessons taught by apparently younger and older teachers, rather than watching film of them. Finally, qualitative or mixed-methods studies in which pupils are asked about their views of and observed interacting with older and younger physical educators would be of use, complement, and provide a new dimension to the type of positivistic experimental work we have conducted.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

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

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Appendix A

Appendix B

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