Autonomy-Supportive Tendencies of Physical Education Preservice Teachers

Purpose

Research has shown that supporting student autonomy can have a positive impact on students' perceived academic competence, intrinsic motivation, and academic performance. The purpose of this study was to 1) examine the extent to which pre-service teachers in a physical education teacher education (PETE) program tend to be autonomy supportive versus controlling, 2) determine if progress through the PETE program is related to autonomy-supportive tendencies, and 3) to examine the relationship between pre-service teachers perceptions of the learning climate in the PETE program and their autonomy-supportive tendencies.

Methods

PETE students (n=100) were categorized based on progress through the PETE program, which consists of 5 pro-blocks of classes that are taken over the course of 5 semesters, ending with student teaching in pro-block 5. Participants completed the Problems in Schools Questionnaire (PISQ), which assesses highly controlling (HC), moderately controlling (MC), moderately autonomy supportive (MA) and highly autonomy supportive (HA) tendencies, and the Learning Climate Questionnaire (LCQ), which assesses participants' perceptions of autonomy support within the PETE program.

Analysis/Results

Results indicated that PETE students tended to favor highly autonomy supportive teaching behaviors (HA=5.15±0.75, on a 7-point Likert scale) to highly controlling behaviors (HC=3.69±0.79). There were no significant differences based on progress through the PETE program, although trends indicated that tendencies for autonomy support increased during time on campus in the program, but shift towards controlling tendencies following student teaching. There was no significant relationship between perceptions of the learning climate in the PETE program and autonomy supportive tendencies.

Conclusions

This study shows that that PETE pre-service teachers show a preference for autonomy supportive teaching behaviors, however future longitudinal study is needed to accurately track how tendencies towards autonomy support change over time in an academic program.