Internal Assessment of a Physical Education Teacher Education Program in the Philippines using the Engagement Theory of Program Quality (ETPQ)

The presence of various quality assurance measures was evidenced in the mainstream of higher education across the world and is a well-accepted normative standard of excellence even in the Philippines. However, there is a need to examine programs that strongly manifest students’ engagement in the educational system. Hence, this study was sought to facilitate the conduct of an internal quality assessment of the Bachelor of Physical Education program from a teacher education institution in a state university in Pampanga, Philippines grounded on the Engagement Theory of Program Quality (ETPQ) (Haworth & Conrad, 1997). A mixed-methods sequential explanatory design (follow-up variant explanatory model) was used to examine the importance, concreteness, and effectiveness of the 16 attributes of the ETPQ model by the students and faculty members of the program. Results of the quantitative strand revealed that the ETPQ attributes are generally perceived to be extremely important, highly evident, and highly to extremely effective, and yielded no significant differences between the two groups. Moreover, linear regression (forward selection method) revealed ten (10) attributes of the ETPQ in terms of concreteness to be significant predictors of effectiveness. Additionally, the qualitative strand further explored these attributes to reveal the best practices in the program. Congruence between the respondents’ assessment and their narrative experiences was also confirmed. The inputs derived may pave the way for the institutionalization of quality assurance mechanisms that put into premium the strong engagement of the students complementary with other stakeholders.