Perspectives of serving teachers on the respective importance of areas deemed suitable for inclusion in the health education curriculum for Cyprus schools

Abstract

Objective The paper aims to survey the perceptions and attitudes of a representative sample of Cyprus teachers on the importance of areas deemed suitable for inclusion in the health education curriculum and to offer suggestions for the development of a health education curriculum for Cyprus schools.

Design Twenty-eight areas that included both those identified by a panel of experts as relevant to health education and also those obtained from the literature were included in a questionnaire. This was developed and designed to sample teacher views on the school curriculum areas into which health education can be integrated.

Setting Greek speaking schools in all levels of Cyprus education (teachers of pre-primary, primary, secondary and special education).

Method After piloting,1000 questionnaires were distributed to random samples from each of the four teacher populations (pre-primary, primary, secondary and special education). Importance ratings for each of the 28 areas were obtained from a representative sample of 648 (65 per cent) Greek Cypriot teachers (seven per cent of the teacher population), and the areas ranked in importance in accordance with these ratings.

Results Significant response differences emerged between sub-samples categorised by type of school, subject specialisation, sex and years of service. Multivariate analysis of the ratings yielded eight factors indicative of major health education domains. Factor analysis (varimax rotation) of the data on the overt curriculum revealed eight factors of potential relevance to curriculum development.

Conclusion The paper concludes by drawing from the data a number of suggestions for future progress. The findings have implications for training Cyprus teachers in health education, and for health education curricula in general.