Associations between physical educators’ appearance and sex and high school pupils’ cognitive performance and perceptions of teacher characteristics

The importance of physical educators obtaining a discipline-specific appearance as role models is documented in the literature. Previous research has examined the influence of physical education teachers’ body fatness, (dis)ability, and age on pupils’ learning and perceptions of the teachers. To expand the research line, this study focused on teachers’ formal/informal appearance and their sex. Four 20-minute videos consisting of female informal appearance (FIA), female formal appearance (FFA), male informal appearance (MIA), and male formal appearance (MFA) were created to collect data from 533 high school pupils. A content examination and a perception questionnaire were used to measure cognitive performance and perceptions of the teachers. Factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to identify any significant main effects or interaction effects on the tchoukball examination, two content areas (i.e. techniques and strategies), and perceptions of three teacher characteristics (i.e. likability, competence, and appropriateness as a role model). Findings revealed significant main effects for teacher appearance on the overall examination and both content areas. Participants who watched the informal appearance videos scored significantly higher than those who watched the formal appearance videos. Furthermore, there was an interaction effect on the strategy portion of the examination. Participants who watched the MIA video scored the highest, followed by those who watched the FIA, FFA, and MFA videos. Factorial ANOVA found no significant main effect or interaction effect on the three teacher characteristics. One key conclusion indicates that the formal/informal appearance is far more open to interpretation than the (dis)ability and age aspects.