Adequate Adapted Physical Education Training for Pete Majors?

Background/Purpose: A student teaching opportunity is very important in order to develop and maintain positive teaching behavior of pre-service physical educators in physical education teacher education (PETE) programs (Jin, Yun & Wegis, 2013). For instance, this student teaching experience helps pre-service teachers to be prepared to effectively accommodate students with disabilities in a real general physical education class, which is different compared to lab-based environment (i.e., a one-on-one gym/swimming setting). Many PETE programs only offer one introductory adapted physical education course to pre-service teachers based on an assumption that offering this basic course would adequately train pre-service teachers toward inclusive physical education classes. However, this premise has not been examined. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether PETE majors with and without an adapted physical education minor have the same self-efficacy toward inclusion after their student teaching. 

Method: A total of 100 PETE majors who did student teaching between fall 2011 and spring 2014 (6 semesters) at a university in Midwest participated in this study. Before their student teaching, adapted physical education minors (n=43) took six disability related courses, whereas non-minors (n=57) took only one introductory adapted physical education course. The student teaching included both elementary and secondary levels for nine weeks each and was supervised by an assigned PETE faculty member. To assess participants’ self-efficacy, they were asked to complete the Self-Efficacy Scale for Physical Education Teacher Education Majors toward Children with Disabilities (Block et al., 2013) at the end of their student teaching. 

Analysis/Results: A series of independent t-tests were conducted to achieve the study purpose. Across intellectual disability, physical disability, and visual impairment, it was found that PETE majors with an adapted physical education minor had significantly higher self-efficacy for peer instruction, staying on task, safety, and specific adaptations that are critical elements toward successful inclusion, compared to non-adapted physical education minors (P<.001). In addition, adapted physical education minors had significantly higher self-efficacy when conducting fitness testing, teaching sport skills, and actually playing the sport that are different situational contexts in inclusive physical education classes, across all three disability types (P<.001). 

Conclusions: Findings indicate that offering one introductory adapted physical education course is not adequate to well train future physical educators toward inclusion. It may be necessary that PETE programs offer more disability related courses to help all pre-service teachers increase self-efficacy toward inclusion and eventually provide quality physical education to all students.