Method: Six instructors who taught elementary content courses from five PETE programs and 95 PETE major undergraduates in their intact classes participated in this study. To identify their distinct learning contexts, each instructor’s survey response, course materials, and a representative videotaped lesson were collected and analyzed. The participating students were requested to complete the elementary content knowledge form at the beginning and end of the course. Using a developed coding template, the numbers of task statements, appropriate/correct task statements, and developmentally/sequentially appropriate task statements were coded from the student data.
Analysis/Results: Teacher data were analyzed using content analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Three distinct learning contexts (i.e., modeling, peer teaching, and lecturing) were identified. Student data were analyzed using ANCOVA. The preliminary data analysis showed that there was no statistically significant relationship between the pre-test (i.e., covariance) and post- test scores as a function of learning context (F (2, 89) = 1.27,p = .287). The ANVOCA showed statistically significant difference (F (2, 89) = 58.08, p = .000, ηp2= .56). The results of post hoc tests showed that there was no statistical difference of students’ post SCK scores between peer teaching and lecturing. However, the students who were in the “modeling” context had significantly higher post SCK scores (M= 89.81), controlling for the effect of the pre-test scores, than the other students in the “peer teaching” (M= 50.38) and “lecturing” (M= 40.03) contexts.
Conclusions: It is evident that what students learn is determined by the quality of instructional activities (Ward, 2013). To produce meaningful outcomes in physical education, prospective teachers must develop in-depth understanding of content through participating in quality instruction in PETE. This study allowed us to determine which learning contexts are most influential in terms of SCK achievement.