The Efficiency of the Physical Education Teaching Process Tanja Petrušič and Vesna Štemberger
Summary: Physical education (PE) plays an important role in pupils’ lives because it enables the development of all motor skills and abilities. Therefore, a qualitative, planned and performed process of the PE subject must be ensured. In this field, there is also a lack in the ability to teach lessons efficiently. In this context, we wanted to ascertain which teaching items influenced the implementation of efficient PE lessons. Fifty-one PE lessons were observed. A total of 306 second- to fifth-grade pupils wore accelerometers to determine the intensity of their physical activity during PE classes. The effective time of the 204 pupils was measured by stopwatches. Only 11 (21.6%) PE lessons had efficiency levels above the established standard (50% of the time spent in high and moderate intensity and at 50% of the effective time). The common teaching items of all the efficient PE lessons that influenced a higher level of pupils’ activity were different forms of within-class grouping in one lesson, practical usage of nonverbal communication, addressing instructions to the pupils by names, ensuring differentiation and individualisation, appropriate protection, additional directives, positive feedback and teaching with enthusiasm. General teachers should incorporate the abovementioned items into their teaching of PE lessons to achieve higher levels of pupils’ activity.