Areas of physical education and specialist roles sensitive to contemporary social demands

Contemporary social transformation requires schools to be innovative in order to meet new educational demands. The main objective of the research was to collect the opinion of physical education specialists, primary and secondary school teachers, in relation to an updated proposal for areas of educational intervention and consequent roles to be assumed. The sample consisted of 209 physical education specialists as part of a descriptive mixed design study. A quantitative Likert-scale questionnaire was used to evaluate the 5 areas and 5 roles proposed. Pearson's correlations for the scores of both scales in relation to the total scores of the questionnaire were positive and strong (r (questionnaire-area) = .884, p < .001 and r (questionnaire-roles) = .858, p < .001), and the overall reliability of the items was good ( alpha = 0.756). In addition, 30.6% of the sample (64 participants) voluntarily completed a qualitative narrative opinion questionnaire. In all areas and roles, the maximum score was chosen most frequently, with Physical Activity and Health (77.99%) and Teaching (86.6%) standing out respectively. No statistical significance was obtained in relation to gender or years of teaching experience, but the areas were sensitive to educational stage. Accordingly, the narrative responses revealed positive perceptions of the proposed areas and roles. Despite the emergence of new contemporary responsibilities in the discipline, specialists continue to focus on physical education that promotes physical activity and health from the perspective of teaching responsibility.