Health awareness and sporting behaviour of qualified Cypriot physical education teachers

Study aim: To assess the health awareness and sporting behaviour of qualified physical education (PE) teachers and the extent to which their health models are worth being followed.

Material and methods: A survey was conducted on the entire Cypriot population (n = 1880) of PE graduates regardless of their actual job. A random sample (n = 531; 28.2%) was selected its main characteristics reflecting those of the total population. The active PE teachers were subjected to face-to-face interviews, those having other jobs responded by mail. The interview questionnaire contained closed, alternative, and open-ended questions.

Results: Qualified PE graduates engaged in teaching or in sport-related jobs were the most active physically and had highest health awareness. Those, whose jobs were not sport-related, changed their attitudes towards healthy lifestyle and sports. Many of them would have preferred to have undertaken other, sport-unrelated studies. Yet, almost all subjects studied tried to motivate others to be involved in sport activities.

Conclusions: The health awareness and sporting behaviour of PE-graduates was affected by their current jobs. In effect, those who applied for PE-teacher jobs were at risk of having their health-directed behaviours deteriorated before having got the job. This ought to be considered when designing in- or off-service training courses.