Los Angeles Mission College



Chapter 12

Becoming a Physical Activity Professional

Presentation Guide

I. Introduction to the spheres of professional practice and the physical activity professions (figure 12.2)

II. What is a profession?

a. Continuum from nonprofessional to semi or minor professional to professional occupation (figure 12.3)

b. Characteristics of a profession

Key Point: Those who are preparing for a position in the physical activity professions should know what a profession is, the type of work professionals do, how one gains entry to and acceptance in a profession, the obligations of professionals, and the most important factors to consider in preparing for a career in the physical activity professions.

i. Professionals have mastered complex skills grounded in systematic theory and research.

1. Professionals as practitioners

2. Types of skills that make professionals experts (motor, cognitive, perceptual, and interpersonal)

3. Types of knowledge that make professionals experts (figure 12.4)

Key Point: Professionals develop a range of cognitive, perceptual, and motor skills, anchored in theoretical, workplace, and practice knowledge, that enable them to achieve predetermined outcomes efficiently and effectively.

ii. Professionals perform services for clients or patients.

1. Service based on commitment

2. Services rendered are expert

3. Service based on clients' needs and interests (clients should not be totally dependent on the professional)

Key Point: The touchstone of professional work is the delivery of expert services to improve the quality of life for others, always with priority given to the client’s welfare.

iii. Professionals possess a monopoly on delivery of services.

Key Point: Professionals are granted monopolies because only they possess the knowledge and skills to meet particular needs of the community.

iv. Professionals collaborate with colleagues to ensure high standards and ethical practices (formal and informal).

1. Role of professional societies and conferences

2. Importance of ethical conduct principles and standards

3. Licensure and professionalism

Key Point: Professionals have a stake in maintaining high standards of conduct for all practitioners in their profession. To accomplish this, professional organizations make opportunities available for continuing education by their members and publish guidelines specifying acceptable and unacceptable ethical conduct.

v. Professionals adhere to standards of their professional subculture.

Key Point: Professionals perform services for clients in a variety of subcultures. The delivery of services relies on complex skills and knowledge. Part of being a professional is possessing and maintaining a monopoly on the delivery of specialized services and working to maintain high standards of professional and ethical conduct.

III. How do our values shape our professional conduct?

a. Mechanical, market-driven professionalism

b. Social trustee, civic professionalism

Key Point: Your personal values influence how you act out your professional role. Mechanical, market-driven professionals value the profession, profit, personal prestige, and status over the rights and needs of clients. The social trustees, or civic professionals, value clients and the social good more than themselves or their profession.

IV. How are physical activity professionals educated for the workforce? (WSG activity 12.1)

a. Liberal arts and sciences

Key Point: College courses in physical activities are taken in conjunction with liberal studies as an essential part of professional preparation. As a result, students should develop the ability to examine their physical activity experiences from an informed, educated perspective and to integrate the knowledge learned from them into a coherent professional perspective.

b. Course work in physical activity

c. Course work in theoretical and applied theoretical knowledge in kinesiology (WSG activity 12.2)

d. Course work in professional practice focuses on mastery of knowledge and professional skills.

Key Point: Knowledge of the discipline itself will not equip students to perform the tasks required in their chosen professions. They develop the competencies required in a profession through course work that provides practice in performing these skills.

e. Apprenticeships or internships at the worksite

Key Point: The internship is the culminating educational and evaluative experience for preprofessionals. As an educational experience, the internship provides students with an opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills they learned in the undergraduate curriculum while working under the supervision of a trained professional at an off-campus site. The internship is also an evaluative experience that tests students’ levels of preparedness to enter their chosen professions.

V. Are students suited for a career in the physical activity professions?

a. Do my attitudes, values, and goals match those of professionals?

Key Point: The following statements are designed for the students in your course to question themselves about how well they match up with their desired career and to possibly make a change if they do not: If you decide that your attitudes, values, and life goals match those normally associated with a professional career, you are ready to proceed to the next question in the decision model. If you conclude that your attitudes, values, and life goals are not a good match for a professional career, you should seek advice from a faculty member or the career counseling center at your institution.

b. Am I interested—really interested—in physical activity?

c. Do my attitudes, interests, and talents lend themselves to a specific physical activity profession? (WSG activity 12.3)

d. Will my college or university program prepare me well?

e. How committed am I to preparing to be the best professional possible?

Key Point: Perhaps the best predictor of students’ success in the physical activity professions is the level of commitment they make to preparing themselves to be the most knowledgeable and highly skilled practitioners possible.

i. Excellence in academic work

ii. Early identification with the professional field

iii. Engagement in college or university life

iv. Participation in volunteer services

v. Attending graduate school

Key Point: Volunteering regularly for service with a community agency is an indication that students share in their profession’s commitment to service. Seeking in-depth, advanced education in graduate school may also be a sign that they are investing their interest and personal resources in a career in the physical activity professions.

Key Point: Identifying early with the profession you plan to enter by joining appropriate professional organizations, attending conferences, establishing alliances with veteran professionals, and obtaining professional certifications will give you a head start on developing a successful career.

Key Point: Becoming involved in activities within and outside your department is one indication of commitment to developing a successful career in the professions.

f. Decision-making process

Assignments

1. Have students set up a meeting with a practicing physical activity professional of their choice. Prior to the meeting, they should create a series of questions. Students should spend around a half hour with the professional and ask questions about job responsibilities, satisfaction, training, professional development, and so forth. Students should dress professionally and be well prepared. When possible, the student should shadow the professionals to observe them in action (this would require an additional half hour and may have to be done at a separate time depending on the professional’s schedule and the student’s schedule). A write-up about the interview and also the shadowing should be submitted by the students. You may also want to include some class discussion to help students learn more about the different professions.

2. Students can visit several professional organization websites that match their career goals. At each website, students should find out if student membership is available and determine the benefits and costs of becoming a student member. This is a useful way to introduce students to professional organizations and the benefits they offer to practicing professionals or preprofessionals. It may result in students joining these organizations early, possibly for a reduced cost.

3. Have students find an announcement for an entry-level job that they would be interested in pursuing, imagining that they will be graduating in the near future. With the assistance of career services or another office on campus that offers résumé services, have students create résumés and cover letters that will “sell” them. They may be able to use these résumés for internships or jobs in the field. Creating them may also help them recognize their strengths and identify areas they need to strengthen (for instance, complete another internship or take a business class).

4. Have students review various professional journals (such as JOPERD, Fitness Management, Athletic Training Journal, Quest, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, the state AAHPERD journal, or a coaching journal) to get an understanding of topics that are being studied and discussed in the field. Have students compare two or three journals. What are the journals’ target audiences? Are the journals applied or theoretical? What are two or three of the current titles?

5. Instruct students to go to to review doctoral program listings and evaluations. You could use this for discussion or have them do some comparisons of top-rated programs. You could also ask them to determine which schools they are most interested in attending following the review of this information.

Topics

• Have students identify what they hope to do with their kinesiology degree. Will they seek a job following graduation, or will they continue their education? Have them identify the type of career they are interested in. Also have them explain why they want to pursue this career. Activity 12.3 in the web study guide will help guide them through this process.

• Have students discuss their responses to the ethics assignment presented in chapter 5 in the section Assignments. This discussion should be done in small groups to allow students to express their views and also defend their responses. They will be able to talk about ethics as they relate to all kinesiology professionals and their specific career field as well.

• Have students describe their ideal job. It does not have to be their first job, but it could be the one they work their way into. Why do they consider this their ideal job? What steps will they need to take to be able to apply for such a position? Activity 12.4 in the web study guide can help with this conversation and decisions.

Speakers

• Invite a representative from the study abroad office on campus to discuss study opportunities abroad. These opportunities can provide students with internship opportunities or professional and personal growth that can help set them apart from others when they are seeking jobs.

• Invite someone from career services to discuss résumés and cover letters with the class. This person may also be able to discuss the types of jobs available, the growth of a particular career, salaries, and requirements; she may also conduct mock interviews. She may be able to assist with graduate school discussions and decision making as well.

• Invite individual professionals or a panel of professionals to discuss career opportunities in kinesiology and to give students tips about how to maximize their undergraduate education, making themselves marketable and successful. The professionals could also talk about professional organizations and help students understand the importance of these organizations, which will expand on the discussion that started when the students explored the organizations in an earlier assignment.

• Invite graduates who are working in the profession to come to class and discuss their education and preparation. How prepared did they feel entering the job market? They could give your students job-seeking advice and also talk about how well your institution prepared them for a career (take into account when the person graduated).

Tips

• Once students have identified their career choices, you can group them together to complete some of the remaining discussions or complete other activities. This grouping can help them begin to create a network of professionals (preprofessionals) to support them in the pursuit of their education and future careers. Because these students will likely be together in many kinesiology classes beyond this introductory course, this is a good time for them to get to know and support one another.

• This chapter is designed to have students think carefully about a career in kinesiology and how well they fit this career field. Having the students complete the web study guide activities (particularly activities 12.3 and 12.4) and discussions about how prepared they are for the field, as well as what they can do in addition to taking courses, will really help them get a head start on being as well prepared for their career as possible. Many of the students have not really discovered what it takes to achieve their dream job, so alerting them to this early in their college career is critical. Honest evaluation of current strengths and deficiencies can help students make decisions throughout their college career to be best prepared for what is to come.

• Assignment 1 will help prepare students to make good career choices and good decisions in their education. By observing and interviewing a practicing professional, they will be more knowledgeable about their career choices and will be able to begin to build their network. This assignment may also lead to an internship opportunity or even a part-time or full-time job while they are in school or upon graduation.

Resources

American Council on Exercise

American College of Sports Medicine

American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance

National Strength and Conditioning Association

American Physical Therapy Association

American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc.

National Alliance for Youth Sports

North American Society for Sport Management

National Collegiate Athletic Association

Physical Activity Resources for Health Professionals: Tools for Promoting Physical Activity

physicalactivity/strategies/index.html

International Sports Sciences Association issaonline.edu/why-issa/index.cfm

National Athletic Trainers’ Association

American Association for Physical Activity and Recreation aapar/

PE Central professional/becomingapeteacher.html

Explaining internships articles/nusinter.htm

American Kinesiology Association careers-in-kinesiology

National Education Association

Review Questions and Answers

1. List three ways in which professional work differs from nonprofessional work.

Professional work involves complex skills that are grounded in research-based theory. Professional work is centered on providing services for clients or patients.

Professional workers collaborate with colleagues to ensure that high standards and ethical practices are being followed by all professionals.

2. Why is it important for professionals to attend professional conferences and read the professional literature?

All professionals recognize the need to constantly update their knowledge and skills. By attending conferences and reading professional journals, they ensure that their practices are current and in accordance with latest research. Attendance also fosters a network of other practicing professionals who can support you.

3. List three differences that you might observe between a community sport program leader who adheres to a mechanical, market-driven professionalism and one who adheres to a social trustee, civic professionalism.

Community leaders who follow a mechanical, market-driven philosophy are likely to value competitive success over other goals. They probably will view the people they work with and serve as means to attaining their career aspirations. In many cases, the work of these professionals becomes its own justification, valued by them and their colleagues regardless of whether it has any real benefits for society. Mechanical, market-driven professionals are likely to serve their clients in a fragmented, compartmentalized fashion. That is, these professionals view their professional contributions within the strict limits of their specialization and ignore the variety of relevant forces acting on the client, such as family disintegration, illness, or drug or alcohol dependency. These professionals may dismiss these other problems as “somebody else’s responsibility” and never go out of their way to see that proper referrals are made. Community leaders who follow a social trustee, civic professionalism are likely to value the people they work with as being more important than any recognition they can earn for themselves. Rather than winning games, their concern will be upon how their actions are enhancing social and economic development and democracy.

They operate according to this rule: “Healthy people and a good society first, me and my profession second in service of this greater good” (Lawson 1998a, p. 7). They recognize that clients live in a multiplicity of worlds (e.g., work, school, family, church), and they understand the ways in which worlds can interact to affect their clients’ lives. Because of this, these professionals often work in teams with other specialists to achieve desirable goals. They make no pretense about being objective in their relationships with clients. Their professional practices reflect their personal values. They don’t view clients as dependent on them, believing that the professional–client interaction can be a mutual growth experience in which each benefits from the other’s knowledge and skill.

4. What is the value of the liberal arts and sciences and why are the liberal arts courses required of kinesiology majors important?

The value of liberal arts and sciences is that it frees you from depending on others to do your thinking for you by providing you with broad-based knowledge and intellectual skills essential for undertaking more advanced study in your professional curriculum.

The liberal arts and sciences courses taken by kinesiology students provide them with a very broad education that will equip them to ask important questions, recognize the best way to organize their thinking to answer those questions, and stimulate a desire in students to continue to educate themselves throughout their lives. Further, the disciplines studied in the liberal arts are the foundation for the spheres of scholarly study in kinesiology.

5. Why is the internship an important experience in preparing kinesiology students for professional practice?

Internships offer students firsthand experiences in applying the knowledge and skills they have acquired in the kinesiology curriculum. Working under the supervision of experienced mentors and trained practicing professionals, students can learn the basics of professional work. The internship is also an evaluative experience that it tests your level of preparedness to enter your chosen profession.

6. What are five questions that all kinesiology students should ask themselves before deciding to major in kinesiology?

Do my attitudes, values, and goals match those of professionals?

Am I interested---really interested---in physical activity?

Do my attitudes, interests, and talents lend themselves to a specific physical activity profession?

Will my college or university program prepare me well?

How committed am I to preparing myself to be the best professional possible?

7. What evidence would you—as an employer—use to determine an applicant’s general suitability for a professional position?

Does the applicant have the required educational background, certification, and licensure? Has the applicant distinguished herself academically in her college years? While in college did she involve herself in the types of experiences that will add to her knowledge of her chosen career? Has she shown an interest in college in seeking out opportunities for leadership and service? Has she shown an interest in being a leader in the community or profession? Was she engaged in ways that would advance her understanding and preparation for the profession?

8. What would be the ideal work history of a kinesiology graduate seeking to enter the athletic training field? The health-fitness field? The sport management field?

Athletic training

A student entering the athletic training field should have become involved in assisting athletic trainers while in college, preferably as early as high school. Additional volunteer experience in orthopedic clinics and physical therapy clinics would be viewed as especially valuable by employers. Employment in a fitness facility or as a graduate assistantship with a team would also be valued, just as employment as a first responder or Emergency Medical Technician would be. Certification is required for employment as an athletic trainer.

Health-fitness

Applicants for jobs in the health-fitness field should show a lifelong interest in physical activity, particularly exercise. Early volunteer work at the local YMCA or commercial gyms, or experience leading exercises for young people at camps or in community activity programs, is also valuable. Certification as an instructor for a particular type of exercise or as an exercise specialist or as a strength coach is valuable and may be required for employment.

Sport management

The answer here depends on which aspect of this broad field one chooses to specialize in. If a job as a college athletic director is the career one has in mind, then successive stints as facilities coordinator, work in the ticket or marketing office, experience in budget administration, and public relations office work, plus service as an associate athletic director are likely to be valued by employers. Choosing experiences that expose you to the various specialty areas would be the key to your preparation. In addition, having experience in a variety of areas would make you even better prepared to meet the demands of the profession, and make you more marketable.

9. If, during your second year of the kinesiology major, you decide to pursue a career as a physical education teacher after having entered as a sport management major, what is the best course of action to take?

First, you will need to determine if your department or college offers a major in physical education. If not, then following completion of your current semester, transferring to a program that does is your first order of business. Once there, plan on taking an at least an extra year of coursework since most physical education teacher education programs require coursework during all four years. Another possibility is to continue your degree in sports management while picking up relevant coursework in physical education teacher education. Upon graduation, you may be able to find entry into a master’s degree program in physical education, although you should plan on taking an extra year of graduate coursework. To teach in the public school setting, you must be sure that the physical education preparatory program will result in teacher licensure, since not all programs do. Also consider whether the program you are completing licenses you in physical education only or physical education and health, as some states require certification in both areas for employment. Be sure to research the requirements of the state where you want to be employed to be sure you seek the proper training and licensure.

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