The impact of occupational socialization on physical education pre-service teachers’ beliefs about four important curricular outcomes

Abstract

Most national Physical Education (PE) curriculums worldwide are based on a variety of outcome goals. The most important are physical activity and fitness, self-actualization, motor skill development and social development. Capturing PE Teacher Education pre-service teachers’ beliefs toward these outcomes may offer a useful insight into the process of identifying and understanding prospective teachers’ decisions and actions. The aim of the current study was to compare PE pre-service teachers’ beliefs regarding four important outcome goals, according to year in university, athletic background and occupational orientation. A total of 483 undergraduate pre-service teachers from a Greek faculty of PE completed a previously validated four factor instrument. Significant differences were observed in the four outcome goals beliefs between pre-service teachers in different years of studies and between teaching and coaching oriented pre-service teachers. No differences were found between pre-service teachers with different athletic backgrounds. Findings suggested that sport participation per se did not affect outcome beliefs toward a specific direction and all pre-service teachers rated higher the physical activity and fitness goal. Participants with a teaching orientation rated higher three of the four outcome goals than their coaching oriented counterparts. Furthermore, third year field-based experiences had a positive impact on pre-service teachers’ beliefs, while the fourth year of studies and the coaching specializations contributed to a beliefs ‘washout effect’. Recommendations arise from previous and present findings regarding the faculty's undergraduate programme and we propose that future studies build on this research by continuing to examine PE students’ and teachers’ beliefs more thoroughly.