Teaching outdoor and adventure activities: an investigation of a primary school physical education professional development p

The Professional Development Programme Impacted Positively on the Children 
and their Learning 
The ultimate aim of any programme of professional development should be to 
improve student learning. Much of the literature focuses on the programme of 
professional development itself or on the teachers it is aimed at, however, in recent 
years there has been a shift towards providing evidence of impact on student learning 
though as yet there is little research which links learning in physical education and 
teacher professional development (O' Sullivan & Deglau, 2006; Tsangaridou, 2006). ‘It 
is foolhardy to either expect or focus on measuring student learning when teachers have 
just begun to learn and experiment with new ideas and strategies’ (Loucks-Horsley, 
Hewson, Love & Stiles, 1998, p. 222) that was the focus of this study as revealed by the 
initial needs assessment. In the absence of standardised testing or outcome measures 
for physical education or specifically in O&AA, study measurement of learning was not 
carried out. Future research needs to address how we can measure children’s learning 
objectively. Through the focus group interviews children reported on their learning and 
through researcher observations throughout the unit of O&AA, it could be determined 
that teaching by the teacher was indeed effective. Inclusion of the children’s voice in 
the research design acknowledged and involved children not only in the evaluation of 
the PDP but also in the ‘business of schooling’ (Sims, 2006, p. 4).
Children were able to recount what they had learned and the fact that the 
physical education lessons they experienced as part of the PDP were different, 
compared to other physical education lessons, where they took part for fun, competition 
and recreational purposes. Children’s language of physical education moved from a 
narrow recreational focus to include O&AA terms such as ‘orienteering’. As a result of 
the PDP there was a change in children’s attitude towards physical education, with 
children enjoying O&AA lessons and the new teaching styles being employed by the 
teachers. Problem solving and discovery learning gave the children freedom in lessons, 
compared to the behaviourist style they were used to prior to the PDP, and this in turn 
encouraged the children to become responsible for their own learning. The children’s 
physical education experience throughout the PDP were positively impacted and this 
could in turn lead to increased learning. Other benefits of the PDP such as inclusion, 
whereby all children were involved in O&AA lessons compared to limited participation 
by girls and some boys in physical education prior to the PDP, were highlighted by 

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teachers and children. It was beyond the scope of this study to evaluate the effect of the 
PDP on other aspects of children’s learning, although research suggests that