Purpose
This study seeks to identify and understand health resources as conceptualised in Antonovsky’s (1979) salutogenic approach and contextualised within Health and Physical Education (H/PE) by Quennerstedt (2008; 2019). Health resources are the physical, psychological, social, and cultural factors that support people to create and sustain health in relation to their surroundings. They are not about fixing deficits but about building capacities such as knowledge, skills, dispositions, and supportive environments that allow individuals to cope with stressors and live well. In H/PE, this means using physical activity and learning experiences to strengthen these resources and promote socially just practices. The broader project explores how health resources are understood by students, parents, teachers, and teacher educators, and considers the role of school H/PE in fostering them.
The specific focus of this presentation is on Health and Physical Education Teacher Education (HPETE). It explores how teacher educators conceptualise strengthening health resources and the pedagogical implications for school H/PE.
Methods/Approach/Framework
Ten HPETE academics from Australian universities participated in semi-structured interviews. Questions invited participants to reflect on what it means for young people to be healthy and well, the role of school H/PE in promoting health, and the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and resources needed to support wellbeing. Prompts encouraged discussion of physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions of health, as well as curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular opportunities. Data analysis followed Saldaña’s (2016) methods for coding cycles. Analysis was informed by Antonovsky’s salutogenic model and Quennerstedt’s theorisation of “healthying.”
Results
The research provides insights into how teacher educators understand salutary health resources and their pedagogical implications. Findings highlight perspectives on moving beyond risk avoidance toward resource-oriented learning, integrating multiple dimensions of health, and identifying socially just practices that strengthen health resources. These insights will inform curriculum design and professional learning in H/PE.
Conclusion
By foregrounding health as a dynamic relation between individuals and their surroundings, this study contributes to theoretical and practical discussions about reorienting H/PE toward salutogenic principles and strengthening health resources for all students.
Background: Positive psychology emphasizes the PERMA model as a theoretical framework for promoting well-being. This study integrates the PERMA framework into the design of physical education curriculum to explore its effects on elementary school students’ social and emotional competence, peer support, caring classroom climate and self-regulation. Methods: A quasi-experimental design was employed with 107 fifth-grade students in Taiwan (54 in the experimental group, 53 in the control group). Both groups participated in a 12-week competence-based PE program. The experimental group received a PERMA-integrated curriculum, while the control group followed the standard competence-based PE curriculum. Pre- and post-intervention questionnaires measured social and emotional competence, caring classroom climate, peer support, and self-regulation. Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) was used for statistical analysis. Results: After controlling for pre-test scores, the experimental group showed significantly higher post-test scores in social and emotional competence, caring classroom climate, and peer support compared to the control group, with moderate effect sizes. Conclusion: This study supports the integration of the PERMA model into PE curriculum design as an effective approach to enhance elementary students’ mental well-being and social-emotional learning outcomes. It highlights the long-term potential of school-based physical education in promoting social and emotional competence.
The purpose of this study was to assess how a salutogenic and activist strength-based approach (SBA) can contribute to promote health and wellbeing among youth, exploring the benefits on several groups with different profile of social vulnerability. This perspective goes beyond individuals' deficits to try to promote youth’s health based on their strengths and involving them in the construction of the physical education (PE) curriculum or the community sport program. The study followed a participative action research design, which favours participants commitment, increasing the possibilities of change, especially on vulnerable individuals. It had also a multiple case research design. The project was implemented in three intact groups of Primary School, two intact groups of Secondary School, and a community programme. A total of six PE teachers (five females, 1 male), 170 young people (10–15-year-old, 80 girls and 90 boys), and 20 researchers from Universities of Spain, Australia, and Netherlands participated in this project. The data sources were focus groups and interviews with young people and teachers, debriefing sessions with teachers and researchers, and the artifacts created by the young people. The greatest benefits were observed in the community program, where all participants were youth from socially vulnerable backgrounds (a high number of barriers were identified; most young people felt safe and shared their problems; they accepted the methodology without excessive complaint; and they perceived the contributions of the SBA on the program and their lives). In the physical education groups that included some youth from socially vulnerable backgrounds, the program yielded greater benefits in secondary school than in primary school. In secondary school, it was difficult to bring the barriers to light. The barriers were common across the different groups, with gender and social and emotional problems being the most prominent. In the group without young people from socially vulnerable backgrounds, the program was nonetheless motivating, helping young people develop participatory attitudes and become aware of their health resources. In conclusion, the SBA produced greater benefits in groups where the social vulnerability profile was higher, although it contributed to all groups in different ways.
Introduction and purpose
The mental health of young people continues to be highlighted in research from a range of disciplinary perspectives (for example, Deng et al, 2023; Fleming et al, 2020; Veukiso-Ulugia et al, 2024; Webber & Waru-Benson, 2022). While approaches to research vary, there is board consensus that young people in many places are experiencing and expressing greater levels of distress compared with a decade ago. There is, relatedly, a growth in school-based mental health interventions, many of which are individualised and framed by western psychological knowledge. These can lead teachers towards wellbeing testing and particular mental health pedagogies. However, if we take the social determinants of health seriously, then pedagogies that attend to the social, political, and historical contexts of mental health and wellbeing, including the role of colonisation and exclusionary gender discourses might make more impact. This presentation reflects on current research and practice in school-based mental health programmes. It questions how mental health pathologies coalesce in complex ways with gender and race discourses and considers the curriculum possibilities for meaningful critical engagement with mental health and wellbeing.
Methods
This paper is a theoretical engagement with mental health discourses, testing and pedagogies in health education. It engages directly with a range of academic research and draws on examples from Aotearoa New Zealand.
Conclusions
Pedagogical approaches to mental health education tend to be framed by western, psychological and individualistic epistemologies. This directly impacts the decisions of teachers and limits the possibilities for meaningful curriculum.
Purpose
Track and field is a core “challenge-type” sport in Taiwan’s physical education (PE) curriculum, yet students often show lower motivation to learn it compared with competitive or aquatic activities. This study aimed to develop and validate an ARCSV-based motivation scale tailored for PE and track and field learning contexts. Guided by Keller’s ARCSV model—comprising Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction, and Volition—the study sought to measure high school students’ motivation and identify domain-specific differences between general PE and track and field learning.
Methods / Approach / Framework
Two consecutive studies were conducted. Study 1 involved qualitative exploration (field observations, focus groups, and interviews) to generate initial items reflecting the five ARCSV constructs. A total of 1,354 students participated in item analysis, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and validity testing, resulting in an 18-item, five-factor structure with high internal reliability (α = .90). Study 2 adapted the wording of the scale to reflect track and field contexts and administered both scales to 214 students for paired-sample t-tests and correlation analyses.
Results
The validated five-factor model demonstrated acceptable model fit (χ²/df = 2.65, CFI = .92, RMSEA = .067). All subscales—attention, relevance, confidence, satisfaction, and volition—showed significant positive correlations with perceived enjoyment (r = .32–.72, p < .01). Comparisons indicated that students’ motivation toward track and field was significantly lower than their motivation toward overall PE across all five dimensions (p < .05).
Conclusion
This study developed and validated a reliable ARCSV-based instrument for assessing motivational constructs in PE and track and field contexts. Findings reveal that students’ motivation in track and field learning is relatively weaker, particularly in attention and relevance. The developed scales offer PE teachers and researchers a diagnostic framework for designing more engaging, motivationally aligned curricula that enhance participation and support lifelong physical activity.