A well defined line of research has been conducted on the role of self efficacy (Bandura, 1977) in teaching and learning environments. Teaching efficacy has been defined as “the extent to which the teacher believes he or she has the capacity to affect student performance” (Berman, et al., 1977, p.137). Essentially, it is the expressed level of confidence a teacher has in his/her ability to help children learn. Though there is an increasing body of research around the construct of teacher efficacy in general teacher education settings, only limited research can be found in Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE). Given that, the purpose of this study was the examination of lab based and field based practicum experience on pre-service teachers' self efficacy levels within one PETE program. Participants in this study were undergraduate students who were placed into two groups, those who completed the program from 1996 to 1999 (n = 31) under a Laboratory-based (LB) design and those who completed the program from 2000 to 2005 (n = 28) under a Field-based (FB) design. The LB instructional setting provided pre-service teachers (PTs) less complex environments in which many salient contextual factors could be simplified or controlled by the program faculty where as the FB instructional setting provided PTs with frequent and authentic teaching experiences. Data for this study were collected via a validated teaching efficacy scale (Metzler & Reif, 1988) in each of four stages in the PETE program. An experimental design with two levels of treatment (LB and FB) and no control group was implemented. A Repeated Measures ANOVA was made across the four administrations at the beginning of Stage 1 and at the end of each subsequent stage. Results from this study support Bandura's theory where strong and high efficacy level is being established through positive experience over challenges and adversities. In addition, results highlighted the importance of on-going appropriate and authentic challenges in eventually establishing strong and stable efficacy levels among pre-service teachers. As was demonstrated, providing pre-service teachers with frequent authentic teaching opportunities throughout their teacher education program fostered high levels of more realistic self efficacy beliefs towards teaching.Keyword(s): college level issues, professional preparation, research