The Relationships between Pre-Service Primary Teachers’ Teaching and Instructing/Coaching Orientations, and Their Perceived Strengths in Teaching Physical Education at the Primary Level

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.