THE SOCIAL CONTEXT AS 5
adaptive teaching environments may also occur (e.g., Harris & Rosenthal, 1985). Building on
this, the present study wished to explore whether teachers are aware of these potential biases
towards some students.
Much of the research described above has been undertaken in classroom contexts,
with PE receiving less attention partly due to the marginality of PE in the national curriculum
(Sparkes, Templin, & Schempp, 1990). However, this peripheral position of PE also means
that PE teachers work in a very different occupational environment compared to teachers in
“core” subjects. Consequently, any contextual pressures associated with PE may be
somewhat different to that of alternative subjects and, therefore, require separate exploration.
Moreover, much of the aforementioned, SDT-based research offers a sound foundation for
the assessment of determinants of autonomy support, but other methods of motivating
students must be considered. Against this background of neglect, the present study attempts
to ask two primary research questions. First, do PE teachers perceive the teaching context to
influence their attempts to motivate students? Second, if the teaching context does play a
role, what do PE teachers think of these influences? This second question is important
because PE teachers may be forced to teach in certain ways that are in conflict with their
teaching beliefs. If teachers behave in ways that they do not value, this may have negative
implications for the teachers’ own motivation and well-being (Deci & Ryan, 2000).
Methods & Methodology
Methodologically speaking, this paper commits to interpretivism (see Sparkes, 1992).
The methods utilized, such as the sampling plan, interviews, data collection, and analysis, are
based and framed by this paradigm. This should be borne in mind when reading the
following methods section and our interpretations of the data generated.
Having gained approval from a university ethics committee, access was gained to the
participants by (name of author) via purposive and maximum variation sampling based on