Preservice Teachers' Perceived Competence and Attitudes Toward Promoting Physical Activity

Background/Purpose: Preservice elementary school teachers (PEST) can effectively deliver physically active lessons targeting academic content (Kibbe et al., 2011). The willingness of teachers to promote physical activity may be inhibited by their perceived competence. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to examine PEST's perceived competence and attitude toward promoting school physical activity.

Method: PEST's enrolled in a Children's Movement course (N = 233) volunteered to provide demographic data and complete the pre-validated School Physical Activity Promotion Attitudes Questionnaire (SPAPAQ) and School Physical Activity Promotion Competence Questionnaires (SPAPCQ; subscales include attitude toward fitness/physical activities, social responsibility, motor skill, and self-concepts).

Analysis/Results: MANOVA was performed on the two scales by the participant characteristics of year in school, age, and race. There were significant effects by race for fitness, F (4, 229) =4.32, p<.01, ES=.11 and motor skill, F (4, 229) = 4.37, p < .01, ES=.11. There were no significant effects by age or by year in school. MANOVA revealed no significant effects for competence for year in school, age, and race. Multiple regression analyses suggested that race, year, and competence F (3, 228) = 3.64, p <.01, R2=.06 were associated with attitude toward teaching fitness/physical activities, while competence and race, F (3, 228) = 4.94, p <.001, R2=.08, were associated with promoting motor skills.

Conclusions: PESTs are more positive about teaching fitness and motor skills than they are about teaching social responsibility and self-concepts. Perceived competence may play a role in PEST's attitude toward promoting physical activity.