Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility (TPSR) is one of the many models that can be used by teachers and/or practitioners to aid their teaching and promote character development in PE. Teaching personal and social responsibility was developed by practitioner/researcher Don Hellison (Casey and Kirk, 2020) in 1978. The main aim of this model is to help students acquire values through physical activity (Hellison, 2011). On the other hand, Casey and Kirk (2020) state that responsibility behaviors can be taught within the contexts of physical activity and can help youngsters adapt to transitions into adulthood. The main goal of this particular model is to promote character development in PE and have students’ empowerment. This is done by using PE as a means to teach a code or a discipline to students and allow them to take responsibility within the lessons.  Hellison (2011) defines responsibility as two related to social well-being (respect for others’ right and feelings, and caring about others). Another huge part of this model is that there are 5 different levels of responsibility that your students can take upon. This then will help you in planning your lessons based on what level your students are at. However, it takes time for the students to move from one level to the next so you have to be patient when using this model. I have chosen to look at this specific model because I believe that there are not a lot of teachers that choose to implement into their lessons and curriculum. Therefore, this page hopefully allows you to gain the knowledge of TPSR to then put it into your curriculum/lessons.   

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The main goal of this particular goal is that this promotes the students’ character development in their PE lessons and students’ empowerment. This then allows them to learn and practice to take responsibility for themselves and for others. The most important outcome is for the students to learn to recognize, accept and act responsibly in physical activity settings. Casey and Kirk (2020) state that with responsibility as the focus, these ranged from a level zero irresponsibility, through participation and effort under supervision, self-direction, and caring about and helping others, to transference of these skills to life outside the gym. This therefore could allow you, as the teacher, to base your lessons depending on the students’ responsibility levels.

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Level 0 - called egocentric and this is where the students are irresponsible. One example of this would be if the student is disturbing the other students by talking when the teacher is speaking.

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Level 1 - called Respect for the rights and feelings of others. This is the lowest level of responsibility. One component for this would be self–control by having the right to peaceful conflict resolution.

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Level 2 - is Self – motivation. This is also called ‘participation and effort’. One component of this would be that includes showing respect and also taking part in activities, practicing skills, and/or accepting challenges for improvement (Richards. Et al, 2019). This also can mean that the students have the courage to persist when the going gets tough.

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Level 3 – Self–Direction (Self-responsibility). This is where you generally find students who are on this level on task and have the courage to peer pressure. Self-direction indicates that students can work without direct supervision. Children at this stage are beginning to understand their own needs and can assist with or independently plan their own physical activity programs (Richards. et al, 2019).

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Level 4 - which is the caring stage. The students in this level would show compassion and care. In addition, the students would be helping others or taking on some type of leadership role. These students also have the sensitivity and responsiveness to the situation

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Level 5 - this is the transfer for outside the gym. This is where the students take the responsibility skills they have developed in the gymnasium and apply them in other settings such as in the classroom, at recess, at home, or in the community (Richards. Et al, 2019).

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Each lesson follows a guide that contains five components: relational time, awareness talk, physical activity plan, group meeting, and reflection time (Hellison, 2011).

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Relational time - would take place at the start of the lesson and this allows the teacher to build positive relationships among the students (Richards. Et al, 2019). This could be done by asking the students how their weekend went or if they competed in any sporting events recently. This helps you figure out the character that a specific student has.

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Awareness Talk – this is where you, the teacher, introduce the goal (e.g., effort) for the day and allow the students to discuss and demonstrate their understanding of the goal (Richards. Et al, 2019). In addition, further discussion could help the students to think of what the goal could look, sound or feel like outside the lesson (Richards. Et al, 2019). In this case, the students may say that effort sounds like heavy breathing or feels like sweating.  

Physical Activity Plan – This is where the students practice the responsibility goal whilst learning psychomotor and cognitive skills (Richards. Et al, 2019). Furthermore, the TPSR goal is deliberately put into the lesson activities so that the students have an opportunity to practice responsibility. For example, in a lesson focused on effort, the teacher could ask students to take their heart rate to see how hard they are working (Richards. Et al, 2019).

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Group Meeting - The students discuss the lesson and their overall performance of the TPSR goal and suggest modifications for the lesson or for the goal implementation. This time is also spent discussing applications of the goal in alternative settings to highlight transfer. (Richards. Et al, 2019)

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Reflection Time - The focus shifts from the group to self-evaluation. Another key term in this mature form of teaching personal and social responsibility was self-evaluation, the ability to reflect on and take responsibility for one’s own behaviour (Casey and Kirk, 2020). So, you could ask the students to give a ‘thumbs up, down, or sideways’ on how much effort they put into the lesson. A number of methods may be used to help students reflect, including hand signals or brief journal entries that prompt consideration of responsible behaviors and student learning (Ivy & Jacobs, 2017).

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These components must be implanted within your lessons then this will allow you to implement this model into your curriculum. There must be a big emphasis on the fact that this takes time to fully implement into your lessons and curriculum. So just be understanding of how the students react to this model being fitted into the lessons.