Model Construction of Chinese Preservice Physical Education Teachers’ Perception of Social Media: A Grounded Theory Approach

Yue Xu, Zhihua Yin (), Haohui Liu, Mingzhu Sun, Zhen Guo () and Bo Liu
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Yue Xu: Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, University of Limerick, V94 T9PX Limerick, Ireland
Zhihua Yin: College of Physical Education and Health, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China
Haohui Liu: College of Physical Education and Health, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China
Mingzhu Sun: Department of Physical Education Teaching, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai 201620, China
Zhen Guo: Division of Sports Science and Physical Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Bo Liu: Division of Sports Science and Physical Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 5, 1-34

Abstract: (1) Background: Pre-service physical education teachers commonly embrace social media for multiple purposes. However, little is known about their perception of social media, which could affect the appropriate use of social media in their future professional work. This study aims to explore a theoretical model of how pre-service physical education teachers perceive social media in order to provide a basis for educators to guide their appropriate use of social media. (2) Methods: Qualitative data were collected in diverse ways, mainly from interviews. Seventeen Chinese preservice physical education teachers were selected as participants by a purposive sampling technique. The interview questions focused on participants’ motivation, expectations, and experiences in social media usage. Grounded theory was used to analyze the data by ROST CM and Nvivo 12. (3) Results: The perception of social media among teachers includes three subsidiary categories made up of 10 sub-categories, 70 concepts, and 307 labels. The three categories are (a) value perception, including the perspective of intelligent function, interaction, and rich information, (b) risk perception, involving psychological risk, information risk and privacy risk and (c) overall perception, like development trends, current status and basic elements. (4) Conclusions: Chinese preservice physical education teachers perceive social media as having similarities and differences compared to other countries. Future research should consider a large sample survey to revise and verify the initial exploration of perception and study diverse groups of teachers’ perceptions of social media.

Keywords: preservice physical education teacher; social media; grounded theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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