Personality of students
Students’ personality is an essential component in order to plan and teach physical education (PE) lessons according to students’ individual needs. Additionally, personality formation in general is part of the educational mandate and student personality development specifically is considered as an elementary goal of PE. Although student personality is a central topic in the PE context, the state of research, especially regarding the underlying personality understandings, is diverse and hard to capture. Therefore, this scoping review aims to (I) describe the underlying personality understandings and (II) analyze research questions and results of studies examining students’ personality in PE. We conducted a scoping review. Eleven databases were chosen because of their specification within the field of education, sports and health sciences. We included references if they empirically examined students’ personality in PE and were published in German or English. Twenty-four studies were included in the review. Fifteen of the included studies were cross-sectional, nine longitudinal. Regarding aim I), the underlying personality understandings were inconsistent across the studies but most of the studies followed trait theory. Considering aim II), the included studies investigated relationships between students’ personality and either (a) students’ achievement in PE, (b) students’ psychological determinants of PE participation (e.g., motivation, anxiety), or (c) a school sports intervention. Results indicated that e.g., extraverted students tend to enjoy PE more and obtain less anxiety in PE. The review showed that students’ personality in PE is empirically examined but the studies’ underlying personality understandings, research questions and results are diverse. Findings highlight that PE contributes to students’ personality development. Additionally, the review showed that results of personality research in PE context can be used in order to teach PE in a student-centered way (e.g., by deducing the detected relationships considering extraversion) and by this support students’ lifelong physical activity. Further and targeted research in this field can help PE teachers to tailor their teaching to their students’ needs. This increases the chances to achieve PE’s two main goals—“educating to sports (e.g., personality-aligned lessons addressing different motives)” and “educating through sports (e.g., personality development)” in the long term.
Introduction
Physical education (PE) fulfills an outstanding role within the school curriculum. PE is the only subject in which children are physically active (Penney and Jess, 2004). Even more distinguishing is the fact that PE is the only context in which all school-aged children experience instructed physical activities in the course of their lives (Tammelin et al., 2016). PE is therefore the only sure opportunity to get everyone on the move and convey the importance and chances of physical activity for a healthy life (Kohl and Cook, 2013). This opportunity and the associated goal in its core is internationally prevalent in PE’s central assignment (Sallis and McKenzie, 1991; Pühse and Gerber, 2005; Scheid and Prohl, 2012). In Germany, PE’s central assignment is typically characterized by two main goals (Scheid and Prohl, 2012): (1) Prepare and motivate students for a physically active lifestyle. In this regard, children need to explore different kinds of sports, acquire an appropriate range of movement skills and by this find their individual motives to be physically active in and outside school. PE supports discovering the personal meaning of physical activity and at the same time promotes the understanding and knowledge of various aspects of movement. Students by this develop the capacity to act on one’s own and apply these competencies to a purposeful use of their leisure time and ideally lifelong physical activeness. PE has evolved to become a content area with diverse aims that facilitate the holistic—physical, social, emotional, and intellectual—development of children (NASPE, 2004). Part (2) of PE’s central assignment therefore includes the goal of empowering students’ personal development. In this regard, curricula claim that PE contributes to children’s development in different facets, such as formatting and developing positive personal, social or emotional qualities.
The Importance of Students’ Personality in School
Students are in the focus of both abovementioned goals. PE’s allocated educational mandate therefore implies the necessity to consider the learner in teaching processes such as lesson planning and implementation. In the general educational context, learners’ individual needs are a central factor regarding their learning processes (Jurik et al., 2015). Knowing learners’ individual needs in order to adapt teaching processes includes knowing the learners’ personality. Personality formation is a central factor of the educational mandate which accounts for considering students’ personality in teaching and research. Personality research in school showed a pervasive influence of personality traits on student outcomes such as students’ well-being, emotional states or academic performance (O’Connor and Paunonen, 2007; Poropat, 2009; Richardson et al., 2012). According to O’Connor and Paunonen (2007) students’ personality traits (Big Five) predict their academic performance in two different ways: (1) Via behavioral tendencies affecting habits (Rothstein et al., 1994) and (2) via students’ willingness to perform (Furnham and Chamorro-Premuzic, 2004). O’Connor and Paunonen (2007) results further indicated the increasing importance of personality traits’ influence compared to cognitive abilities’ influence on academic performance when students become older (Furnham et al., 2003). In summary, students’ personality plays a significant role in shaping their educational experiences (Matthews et al., 2006).
By https://www.frontiersin.org/
