Abstract:

The aim of this research was to identify generic kinesiology competences of the teachers in primary education in the Republic of Croatia who have up to five years of professional work experience in school. The research sample included a total of 241 primary school teachers randomly chosen across Republic of Croatia.

The study evaluated the generic kinesiology competences with composite measuring instrument, the questionnaire International Survey of Teacher Competences in the Field of Physical Education (Kovač et al., 2008; Tul et al., 2013), where teachers made self-evaluation of their value orientations according to their attitudes about acquired generic competences for working in the area of physical education with the pupils in primary school education. The anonymous questionnaire consisted of 36 items. For each of the statements, the participants gave three answers on a four-point Likert-type scale.

Descriptive statistics was used to describe the results, and the normality of distribution was tested by Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Factor analysis was used as a parametric statistical method for isolating seven factors describing the latent area of the acquired generic kinesiology competences of primary education teachers at the beginning of their professional work experience in schools.

Keywords:

Factor analysis, lifelong learning, lower grades of primary school, physical education.