1. Introduction
The definition of teachers’ ethics varies by scholar. Campbell described it as something intangible that should be paid attention to in teaching [
1]. Li proposed that it refers to the quality and behavior standards of teachers [
2], while Liu defines it as the sum of teachers’ moral character, code of conduct, and ideas formed in specific educational practice [
3]. Subsequently, in this study, teachers’ ethics is conceptualized as the level of morality, responsibility, kindness, and the overall demeanor of teachers, and it is regarded as a fundamental standard for evaluating teachers’ performances. As teachers hold the role of moral agents [
4], their professional ethics are important to the quality of school education and, consequently, the development of the moral level of society. While teachers with high-quality ethics can help students grow and influence students to develop high morals through their performance, their questionable behavior will negatively impact society and make teachers lose credibility [
5].
The ethics of Physical Education (PE) teachers is of great importance. In terms of students’ ethics development, Drewe [
6] indicated that there was a relation between physical activity and ethics, in which students can develop their ethics through physical education activities as students are greatly impacted by PE teachers. Jones suggested that PE teachers can play a model role, as displayed in physical education activities, in promoting their senses of virtue [
7]. It is, therefore, that students’ ethics development would be, to some extent, dependent on PE teachers. In addition, in the relation with students and PE teachers, the latter ones are superior to the former ones, and in turn can determine students’ subject grades and coach sports teams, for example. Some teachers with poor ethics would probably treat students unfairly [
8]. In this regard, it is encouraged that developing PE teachers’ ethics is beneficial to further promote students’ overall growth. Last, for effectiveness of physical education teaching, PE teachers with better ethics aim to develop students’ overall capability instead of only teaching how to move. This would further make those PE teachers positively explore more effective teaching methods in order to promote students’ development and health literacy, and finally improve teaching effectiveness.
Due to the importance of PE teacher ethics mentioned above, it has attracted much research interest. Some research has indicated that the teaching profession and teaching PE, in particular, are prone to abuse. For example, Mabagala demonstrated that anecdotal allegations concerning sexual harassment and abuse incidences during and after school sports and unfair play behavior during intramural and interschool competitions involving PE teachers are rampant in Tanzania [
9]. Bennel also demonstrated that there was an increase in ethics abuses, such as sexual harassment and abuse in interschool sports competitions in Sub-Saharan Africa [
10]. Based on the frequent incidents of ethical misconduct by PE teachers, Mabagala surveyed students’ perceptions of whether PE teachers comply with the Professional Code of Ethics and Conduct (PCEC) in Tanzania [
11]. The results demonstrated that their teachers have a high level of compliance with the PCEC, which is contrary to the fact that PE teachers are abusive during interschool sports competitions and behave unfairly during intramural and interschool competitions. The contradiction between these research results and the reality suggests that PCEC cannot accurately assess PE teachers’ ethics. Consequently, an assessment specifically designed for PE teachers for their professional development is necessary. However, there is very little research on assessing the ethics of PE teachers.
In ancient times, Confucius set high demands and standards for the ethics of Chinese teachers and proposed that teachers’ ethics should include attributes such as ‘Never be tired to educate your students’, ‘Be a model to others’, and ‘Be responsible, honest, and polite’. With the influence of traditional Confucian culture, the Chinese government has repeatedly emphasized the importance of teachers’ ethics in pedagogic development [
12,
13,
14]. However, the current policies mainly focus on teachers and lack policies and action for the ethics of PE teachers. Over the past few years, incidents of PE teachers’ ethical misconduct have been made public more frequently, negatively impacting the noble image of teachers and demonstrating a reduction in the quality of PE. Therefore, it is necessary and urgent to develop an assessment of the ethics of PE teachers (AECPET). The aim of this study is to present the development of the AECPET theoretical model, identify the weights of AECPET’s domains and their indicators for assessment.
4. Discussion
The AECPET can help provide an overall understanding of teachers’ ethics in China under the influence of Confucianism. It can also be used to understand the differences between Chinese PE teachers’ ethics and other teachers’ ethics. The special ethics of PE teachers have a large impact on PE and health education, and we expect that the AECPET index system will promote PE and health education.
The results demonstrate the ethics that Chinese PE teachers should have and the ranking of the importance of ethics. Through the ranking of domains, it is evident that the weight of the AECPET index system has three levels: (1) LCP and PI; (2) PES, LS, DP and ASH; (3) ASR and ASS.
LCP and PI are the basic components of the literacy of PE teachers, in the first place of AECPET, as the development orientation of education is guided by the Chinese government. PE teachers are the implementors of policies published by the government. As a result, the level of LCP and PI, to a certain extent, can affect the effectiveness of policy [
22]. The Physical Education and Health Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education (2022 Edition) proposes that PE teachers should play a role in conducting health education [
23]. PE teachers with better LCP and PI would adhere to government policies to help build the Chinese national public health system. Among other countries, PE teachers should undertake responsibilities with the guidance from governments. PE teachers in the USA, for example, are required to help students foster personal values that support health; develop group norms that value a healthy lifestyle; and develop the essential skills necessary to adopt, practice, and maintain health-enhancing behaviors [
24]. In some countries, PE teachers need to fulfill the duty and responsibilities set by the government; as a result, LCP and PI are the most important part in the AECPET.
The weights of domains of PES, LS, PD, and ASH rank from 3rd to 6th. They are related to the performance of PE teachers’ teaching practice. In the 21st century, PE teachers are supposed not only to instruct students on how to move but also to promote students’ health and well-rounded development [
25]. Therefore, it is important to clarify the goal within the AECPET [
26]. Within the domain of PES, most countries around the world aim to develop the core competencies of students. In physical education activities, PE teachers have the option to either only conduct movement skills teaching or to design the teaching progress according to students’ distinctive personalities and promote physical literacy. Their different choices may have lifetime effects on students’ lifestyle habits. The former choice can only develop students’ motor skills, while the latter would help students learn how to participate in sports, and it promotes health and raises virtues. Within the domain of LS, as PE lessons are based on physical activity, to prevent psychological harms and physical injuries, PE teachers should pay attention to the physiological and psychological changes of students. In some other countries, LS is an important component of the PE teachers’ professional code of ethics; for example, the code of ethics for PE teachers in Turkey requires that teachers should care for the physical and psychological well-being of students [
27]. In the dimension of DP, teachers are the representatives of morality in Chinese Confucian culture, but PE teachers have long been misunderstood as “physically strong but simply minded and rude”. Therefore, PE teachers should avoid rude words and behaviors in their daily lives and work in order to improve the image of PE teachers in people’s minds. In other cultures, PE teachers who behave rudely and use profanity would frequently damage their personal images and insult the profession. For the students, the education of ethical behavior in PE is one of the educational goals; therefore, teachers should be a model for students in daily life [
28]. Therefore, a high level of DP is also crucial for PE teachers to implement ethical education as a moral role model. Within the dimension of ASH, in China, PE teachers are authorized to enroll students in sports teams. To avoid PE teachers taking bribes in enrollment and helping students cheat to get into school or become the mainstay of the team, ASH is also an important part in the AECPET. In other countries, ASH is the virtues that PE teachers must rise to, and it is also necessary to avoid PE teachers helping student to cheat in the PE exam. For example, the PE teachers’ code of ethics and conduct in Tanzania [
11] and the USA [
29] both include honesty and integrity as an essential part of the PE teacher’s professional ethics.
The weights of the domains of ASR and ASS, representing PE teachers making contributions to society and the academic sector by practical experience, ranked from 7th to 8th. In the domain of ASR, because PE teachers are experienced in teaching practice, they can obtain research output from teaching through observing students’ performance, collecting data from class, and conducting teaching experiments. As the PE curriculum reform goes forward, relevant research on the PE curriculum should keep pace with the reforms. It is highly valuable that PE teachers can provide advice and research outcomes from practical experience to promote the PE curriculum. To better advance PE teachers’ research, promoting ethnics is also urgently needed [
30]. Within the domain of ASS, PE teachers’ participation in social services and disseminating health and exercise knowledge is one of the approaches for PE teachers to achieve their personal development. In the context of “Healthy China 2030”, people’s pursuits of health have received much attention [
31]. Owing to academic and work pressure, people sit in classrooms and offices for longer durations, which negatively affects their health [
32]. In addition to teaching and education, PE teachers with good ethics can actively participate in public activities such as fitness instruction and health disseminations.
In summary, the AECPET is an evaluating system constructed based on the perspective of Chinese PE teachers, which also has a potentially global perspective and can be used by PE teachers with different cultural views.
The results of this study can be used for developing PE teachers in various ways. First, at the government level, improvements should be made to the standard educational framework of PE teacher training [
33], and to the content of teachers’ morals and assessment. Second, the AECPET should be the standard when qualifying excellent teachers. A zero-tolerance attitude towards the AECPET should be developed to reduce the probability of ethics problems. If a PE teacher makes a mistake that was included in the AECPET, they will be punished according to the degree of the mistake. In addition, salary incentives should be introduced for teachers with high ethics levels, the economic needs of PE teachers should be met [
34], and the level of PE teachers’ ethics should be increased through active publicity and positive guidance.
At the school level, we should pay attention to the diversified characteristics of the AECPET, which include the teacher’s invisible morality, dominant behavior and common index of ordinary teachers, and the characteristic index of PE teachers. Therefore, as the first standard to evaluate PE teachers, we should consider all domains when using the AECPET and pay attention to the impact of the AECPET characteristics on teachers’ common ethics index. Moreover, in the evaluation of the AECPET, schools should avoid putting forward requirements that are too high, and gradually improve the PE teachers’ level of ethics [
35].
At the level of PE teachers, subjective initiatives should be used to consciously improve self-cultivation, teachers’ moral levels, and teaching practice norms. Teachers also need to understand the scope of the AECPET, actively participate in political learning activities, improve their ideological understanding, and reflect by comparing themselves to the evaluation indicators of the AECPET. PE teachers can compare their thoughts and behaviors with the AECPET index system to consider anomalies or trends in each index dimension. They can also reflect deeply, change, encourage, and improve the level of ethics through self-cultivation. Additionally, Yin’s research demonstrates that we should pay more attention to teachers’ sense of social responsibility when confronting major public crises [
36]. Subsequently, combined with the reality of the health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers with positive ethics can help manage major epidemics and form correct guidance, which is vital for social stability and social harmony [
37].
At the student level, we should focus on their supervision power, always remind teachers to regulate their behavior, and help PE teachers improve their ethics in teaching practice through teacher–student interactions. As a group in direct contact with PE teachers, students are often victims of teachers’ bad ethics, such as being forced to attend “sheep classes” (teach nothing and let students do what they want to), being physically punished, and being physically assaulted by PE teachers. Therefore, students should use the AECPET to assess PE teachers and provide student supervision to develop PE teachers.
Although the AECPET can provide an assessment tool for PE teachers, there are still some limitations. First, the number of involved experts is small, which may weaken the credibility of the results. In the future, the research should involve more experts (1) in more locations, (2) covering all age of experts, (3) from different countries, etc. Second, the descriptions of indicators are verbalized negatively. In China, there is no assessment especially designed for the ethics of PE teachers. We should let PE teachers know what the ethical baseline is, along with the things they should not do. At the present stage, we mainly assessed whether PE teachers do things that violate professional ethics. When the level of ethics improves, we will change the descriptions into positive forms to let PE teachers know what “Ethical Delegates” should do. Third, The AECPET is developed for Chinese PE teachers; it can provide an example for other countries but cannot be directly applied to the evaluation of PE teachers in other countries. Based on AECPET, researchers in other countries should consider some specific indicators adapted from their culture when developing professional ethics assessments for PE teachers.