TITLE:
The Relationships between Pre-Service Primary Teachers’ Teaching and Instructing/Coaching Orientations, and Their Perceived Strengths in Teaching Physical Education at the Primary Level
AUTHORS:
Juha Valtonen, Mirja Hirvensalo, Jyrki Reunamo, Heikki Ruismäki
KEYWORDS:
Teacher Socialization, Pre-Service Teacher Education, Beliefs about Teaching, Physical Activity, Physical Education
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.5 No.11,
June
24,
2014
ABSTRACT: This study explored if the orientations towards instructing/coaching in
physical activities (PA) and teaching physical education (PE) affect the
perceived strengths in teaching PE at the primary level (PSTPEs). The
orientations were considered as socializing factors into teaching PE. In this
study, the perceived strengths were divided into discipline- and pupil-focused
strengths. Online questionnaire was used to collect the data from 386 first
year pre-service primary teachers before their first PE course of formal
teacher education, to expose the acculturative influences of the orientations.
Cross tabulation and logistic regression were used to analyze the
relationships. The main results suggested that pre-service primary teachers
with an instructing/coaching orientation perceived discipline-focused strengths
(sportiness and teaching skills) as their assets in teaching PE contrasted by
the finding that those with teaching orientation and without instruction/coaching
orientation more likely perceived the pupil-focused empathy as their main
asset. Even though, the associations were not strong, they exposed interesting
directions of effects of acculturative socialization into teaching in terms of
perceived strengths. This study adds to the existing research on teaching PE
information of the acculturative formation of discipline- and pupil-focused
PSTPEs through instruction/coaching and teaching orientations. In order to
develop the effectiveness of formal teacher education, we suggest widening and
deepening the research of acculturative formation of the perceived strengths
and particularly their practical influences on formal teacher training and
later on their behavior while teaching PE.