Physical Education Teachers' Opinions on Character Education and Its Practices *

This research paper has the objectives to shed light on the physical education (PE) teachers' views on the concept of character and character education, the content of elements that they call into play to promote the character education, the role of the PE teacher in character education, and to demonstrate the games, activities, and practices they apply in PE and sports courses to encourage and enhance good character in students. This study is built upon a qualitative phenomenological research design. The study population was selected based on criterion and snowball sampling, which are purposeful sampling methods in qualitative research. The present study recruited seven females, 15 males, and a total of 22 PE teachers employed in private and public schools, aged between 29-60 (Mean=44.09, SD=7.44), and having professional experience ranging from 5-35 years (Mean=20.68, SD=6.97). A personal information form along with a semi-structured interview form were used as data collection tools. Content analysis was employed to analyze the data. The five themes that emerged as a result of the analysis are "opinions on the concept of character", "opinions on the necessity of delivering character education", "opinions on the content of PE in character education", "opinions on the role of the PE teacher in character education " and "suggestions of PE teachers".