Provision of physical education by generalist and specialist physical education teachers in primary schools: a systematic review

Introduction: Physical education (PE) in primary schools is an ideal vehicle by which to promote learning and health in children and teachers have the opportunity to integrate its health and educative outcomes into a broader educational process. In many primary schools, however, PE is usually taught by generalist classroom teachers, many of whom have little PE teacher training or possess limited human movement discipline knowledge, thereby potentially diminishing PE’s potential learning and health effects in primary school-aged children. Aims of the project: To review the published literature of physical education taught by generalist and specialist physical education teachers in primary schools. Research methods: Two independent reviewers assessed studies against the following inclusion criteria: if they compared a PE program being taught by a specialist PE teacher or generalist teacher in a primary school setting; reported a PE outcome; were experimental, quasi-experimental or observational studies; and were published up until 2012 in English. Papers were rated independently by three reviewers on a 6-item methodological quality scale derived from the CONSORT, QUORUM and STROBE statements. Findings: The literature search yielded 1999 potentially relevant publications from scholarly databases with an added 250 of the most relevant hits in Google Scholar (Total=2249). One-hundred and seventy eight (178) references were identified by title as potentially relevant. Based on relevance of abstract, 59 were retrieved in full text with 13 papers meeting the inclusion criteria. Relevance: The most reported outcome when comparing PE specialists to generalist classroom teachers were health-related benefits (physical activity and fitness). Other studies reported on movement skill acquisition and academic achievement in standardized tests. Additional data is currently being extracted and synthesized from included papers and will be reported at the conference.