Uses of drawings to explore and transform future physical education teachers previous ideas

Introduction

This study is part of a broader investigation that we started one decade ago [1], that focused on recognizing and transforming previous ideas of future Elementary and Middle School Physical Education teachers. Despite the fact that there is an interest in the topic at the college level, we believe that we still need to understand better the way the different sources of professional socialization relate to each other, in order to determine what we can do and expect in levels of Elementary and Middle Schools.
In this paper, we will show a strategy to extract future teachers´ ideas through the spaces and materials they associate with Physical Education.

Methods

Other studies have used different strategies to achieve the above-mentioned objectives such as interviews, diaries, rankings, inventories... In our case, we decided to approach the topic through drawings. Our strategy shares Orland’s idea [2] on the interest of drawings as a vehicle to help people talk about deep thinking and memories.
The students were asked to draw an "ideal gymnasium", in which they would like to teach their P.E. lessons. They were given an hour to do so, and were reminded not to look for artistic perfection, but to sketch the main elements so that later they could explain their reasons and points of view.
We collected drawings from three groups of students: one made of first year P.E. student teachers, another one comprised of second year P.E. student teacher, and the last one, with third years whose major was not P.E. We work with the students giving them a definition of the categories and analyzing the drawings. There was also talk about what the different groups had done.

Results

When categorizing the drawings we saw certain homogeneity in each group. That is to say, it could be "predicted" the group to which the author of a specific drawing belonged to. However, the differences were more in specific elements, rather than the general ideas, which all three groups, especially the two with P.E. students, shared.
The gymnasiums showed, nevertheless, a significant influence of the artist’s prior experiences. In other words, the "ideal" gyms were, often, versions of "real" gyms the students had known.

Discussion / Conclusions

We learned that the real frame limits the creation of other possibilities. Therefore, they should be offered different experiences in order to open their minds as teachers. Sennet [3] explained the connection between the body experience and the way humans perceived the space through History. Our students´ referents are mainly extra curricular activities, since that is what they have experienced. However, they may have experienced other influences that can help or difficult to see the gym as a pedagogical space.
We believe that drawing and discussing "ideal gyms" will bring to light preconceptions. In doing so, we try to encompass the different levels of transformation of professional culture; the intellectual level, which is faster and more superficially acquired and the ideological level, which resists change.

References

[1]. Martínez Álvarez, L. (1994): Influencia de las creencias implícitas en la formación inicial de los especialistas en Educación Física. In Romero Granados, S. (Coord.) Didáctica de la Educación Física: Diseños curriculares en Primaria, Ed. Wanceulen, Sevilla, pp. 225-232.
[2]. Orland, L. (2000): What´s a line? Exploration of a reseach and reflection tool. In Teachers and Teaching. Teory and Practice. Vol 6 (2), pp. 197-213.
[3]. Sennet, R. (1997): Carne y piedra. El cuerpo y la ciudad en la civilización occidental. Madrid: Alianza Ed.