Scheduled for Pedagogy I Free Communications, Friday, April 2, 2004, 7:30 AM - 8:30 AM, Convention Center: 209


Information Shared With Interns During Internship in Relation to NCATE/NASPE Guidelines for Teacher Preparation in Physical Education

Dominique Banville, George Mason University, Manassas, VA

In order to be accredited, Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) programs must abide by NASPE guidelines, which were developed in collaboration with NCATE, the teacher accreditation organization. The 4th edition includes nine standards and identifies a number (54) of specific outcomes (NASP, 1998). Standard 6 clearly states that PETE programs must provide pre-service teachers (PST) with field experiences where PST are expected to apply knowledge learned during their training and develop or improve the skills necessary to become an effective teacher. To succeed, they rely heavily on the supervision of their assigned cooperating teacher (CT). The purpose of this study is to determine to what extent PST, during their student teaching experience, have the opportunity to improve the skills highlighted in each of the nine standards. It appears crucial to examine the extent to which this most critical part of the training helps PST develop skills deemed essential by the professional association. Six pairs of CT – PST participated in the study. Data was collected through recorded conversations between PST and their CT and PST logs. Log content and conversation transcripts were read and each portion carrying a specific idea/concept was turned into a unit of analysis (N=477). Each unit was coded under one of the nine standard using a closed model of content analysis (L'Ecuyer, 1988). Coding trustworthiness was established by having a second trained coder analyze samples of the data until a 94% agreement rate was obtained. Results show that the standards were divided into four tiers: Tier 1 includes Planning and Instruction (6) and Management and Motivation (4), and obtained almost half of all the units (49%) showing the emphasis CT put on those topics. The second tier includes Standard 7 (Assessment) and 8 (Reflection) and obtained 11% and 8% of all the units, respectively. Tier 3 includes Communication (5) and Growth and Development (2), each receiving 4%. The last tier is comprised of the three remaining standards with a total of 4% of all the units. The small amount of information shared by CT in some of the standards is very informative. It indicates a need by PETE programs to share the guidelines with CT to make them aware of the various aspects PST teacher training programs need to include. Additionally, it might help CT expand their own teaching skills by having them focus on aspects of teaching they might not pay too much attention to.

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