<i>Yogo</i> Teachers’ Participation in Team-Teaching in Health Education Class:

<p>Background: According to the revision of the course of study and the results of a national survey in recent years, ingenuity of teaching methods is required to aim for the improvement of health education classes in Japan.</p><p>Objective: The purpose of this study was to clarify the situation of team-teaching（TT）in health education classes among Yogo teachers from three stages: preparation, instruction and evaluation. We also examined the consciousness of participation in TT of Yogo teachers and factors of their consciousness such as motivation and expectations.</p><p>Methods: A survey was conducted with all Yogo teachers of public elementary schools and public junior high schools in four prefectures, using an anonymous self-administered questionnaire from October to November 2014. 913 Yogo teachers of elementary schools and 425 of junior high schools responded.</p><p>Results: The rate of Yogo teachers who instructed health education classes as team teachers was 46.8% in elementary schools and 29.6% in junior high schools in 2013. The main reason of non-participation in health education classes as a team teacher was “because it wasn’t requested from the teacher in charge”. The answers of “because of giving priority to Yogo teacher’s work”, “because I didn’t understand the contents of health education”and“because I didn’t have enough confidence or motivation to instruct” also stood out. As for the participation rate in the evaluation stage, Yogo teachers who participated in criterion-referenced evaluation for each viewpoint were 6.6% in elementary schools and 3.1% in junior high schools. For the stage of preparations, each of the 3 sub-category preparation items had different rates, and the totals were 34.6−78.7% in elementary schools and 22.1−66.4% in junior high schools. “Offer material and data” had a relatively high rate, but“making teaching materials” and “making drafts of educational guidelines”had low rates. The motivation of the participation in TT was high in the stage of preparations and implementation. ‘Expectations’, which is strengthened by participation in TT, was high in all stages. On the whole, it showed that such high motivation was an important factor to encourage participation in TT.</p><p>Conclusion: It was suggested that the general situation of Yogo teachers’participation in TT in health education classes was insufficient, so further participation was expected. To encourage Yogo teachers’participation in TT in health education classes, it is important to improve the consciousness of elementary school teachers and junior high school PE teachers to utilize TT during in-service training, to encourage more teaching staff member’s mutual understanding inside each school and the maintenance of a staff support system, and to increase consciousness of understanding and participation of the state of TT of health education classes among Yogo teachers.</p>