What we know, what we do and what we could do: Creating an understanding of the delivery of health education in lower secondary government schools in Western Australia
type: CreativeWork
description: Australian health data indicates that childhood is a significant time for young Australians to develop health and well-being issues. Concurrently, health advocates herald in-school delivery of skills-based participatory health education as making significant contributions to developing behaviour change and supporting health enhancing dispositions in children and young people. In Western Australia (WA), skillsbased participatory health education is characterised by linking knowledge and understandings of what it means to be safer, healthier and more physically active to skills that action these states. Skills-based is a preferred approach to teaching and learning in the Health and Physical Education Learning Area (HPE LA), and at the time of this research was supported through education legislated in The Curriculum Framework (Western Australia Curriculum Council, 1998). The focus of this research was to investigate the representation and delivery of health education as a separately timetabled, discipline-based subject belonging to the HPE LA, specifically in lower secondary government schools in WA. The literature identified quantity and quality as criteria for health education to develop healthy living; therefore, this research sought to identify the factors that affect the delivery of skills-based, participatory health education in these schools. The aim of this research was to identify whether the current delivery of health education in lower secondary government schools supports the capacity of the HPE LA to promote healthy citizenry in young Western Australians. A mixed methods methodology was selected. Quantitative data was collected from 75 teachers who participated in an online and paper survey, and qualitative data from nine teachers who participated in semi-structured interviews. Analysis of quantitative data aimed to determine the extent to which government schools in WA were timetabling lower secondary health education as a separate subject. Additionally,…
abstract: Australian health data indicates that childhood is a significant time for young Australians to develop health and well-being issues. Concurrently, health advocates herald in-school delivery of skills-based participatory health education as making significant contributions to developing behaviour change and supporting health enhancing dispositions in children and young people. In Western Australia (WA), skillsbased participatory health education is characterised by linking knowledge and understandings of what it means to be safer, healthier and more physically active to skills that action these states. Skills-based is a preferred approach to teaching and learning in the Health and Physical Education Learning Area (HPE LA), and at the time of this research was supported through education legislated in The Curriculum Framework (Western Australia Curriculum Council, 1998). The focus of this research was to investigate the representation and delivery of health education as a separately timetabled, discipline-based subject belonging to the HPE LA, specifically in lower secondary government schools in WA. The literature identified quantity and quality as criteria for health education to develop healthy living; therefore, this research sought to identify the factors that affect the delivery of skills-based, participatory health education in these schools. The aim of this research was to identify whether the current delivery of health education in lower secondary government schools supports the capacity of the HPE LA to promote healthy citizenry in young Western Australians. A mixed methods methodology was selected. Quantitative data was collected from 75 teachers who participated in an online and paper survey, and qualitative data from nine teachers who participated in semi-structured interviews. Analysis of quantitative data aimed to determine the extent to which government schools in WA were timetabling lower secondary health education as a separate subject. Additionally,…
author: Barwood, Donna Michelle
keywords: Health education, Secondary Education, Curriculum and Instruction, Education, Public Health Education and Promotion
date published: 2015-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-27T19:23:15Z
provider: Edith Cowan University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia