A Comparison of the Perceptions of Parents, Students, Teachers and School Deans towards the Position of Physical Education in Schools

The aim of the present study was to compare the perceptions of students, parents, teachers and school deans towards the position of physical education in schools. A researcher-made questionnaire of hierarchy of school subjects designed to determine the position of physical education towards art, history, professional technology, math and science was distributed among 85 students, 140 parents, 12 teachers and 11 school deans of one of the educational institutes in region 2 in Tehran for middle and high school boys who were selected by simple random sampling method. The content validity of this questionnaire was confirmed by some experts and its reliability was calculated by Cronbach alpha (α=0.70) in a pilot study. For data analysis, non-parametric Friedman test was used to rank means. Findings indicated that physical education occupied the fourth place (mean rank 4.55) among other courses. In general, the results of this study indicated the average position of physical education among other lessons at school as well as undesirable perception of parents towards the position of physical education.