The knowledge of 'Olympism' of Physical Education teachers (PE) in Sri Lanka

Abstract

According to NIE of Sri Lanka (2015), the national goal of the PE syllabus is to promote national honesty, national harmony, and peace by esteeming human worth and perceiving the differences between Sri Lanka's culturally diverse societies, nation-building, and validating Sri Lanka's recognition. “As a result, the Olympic concept has been incorporated into the physical education curriculum of primary and secondary schools in Sri Lanka." (Nanayakkara, 2012, p.11). Thus, the purpose of this research is to determine what Sri Lankan PE teachers know about Olympism. Therefore, the humanist paradigm is used for this study, which was developed through an interpretive research approach. Then, qualitative research methods have been used for this research. Accordingly, a "Random purposive sampling" consisting of 4 PE teachers from secondary schools in Sri Lanka was used for this research. And also, semi-structured interviews were selected as a method of data collection, and a thematic approach was used to analyze the data. Therefore, four themes were identified, such as knowledge of PE and Olympism, Olympism and curriculum, Pedagogies for teaching Olympism, Barriers and Needs. Accordingly, the findings of this research indicate that participants had a bit of perception of Olympism but they were unable to express a direct and definitive definition. And, they knew the importance of Olympism and wanted to develop their knowledge, but they did not have a way to do so. Consequently, this research suggests that to enhance the teaching Olympism of PE in Sri Lanka, the focus should be on resource updating the development of a formal lesson plan, and the implementation of validated programs to provide physical education teachers with knowledge of Olympism. And also, future studies should be conducted on how such programs should be implemented.