Qualification of prospective PE teachers for inclusive PE: development and evaluation of a PETE concept

Purpose: The qualification of teachers for inclusive physical education (PE) is a central challenge for sports research and university teaching. Nevertheless, a concept of physical education teacher education (PETE) focusing on situation-specific skills and based on typical requirement situations of inclusive PE has not yet been developed. The Qualification of Prospective PE Teachers for Inclusive PE project (QiPE) aimed to design, implement, and evaluate such a PETE concept based on typical requirement situations of inclusive PE for preservice teachers. Method: In the project, requirement situations that teachers had to cope with in inclusive PE were identified on the basis of video recordings (104 PE lessons), and the necessary courses of action, situation-specific skills, and dispositions were determined. Based on this, competence profiles were constructed and a teaching sequence was developed. Three test scales for Recognition, Individual Support, and Participation were developed, and the effectiveness of the first seminar of the developed PETE concept was tested using a pretest-posttest design. Results: There were statistically highly significant relations between the developed seminar and the situation-specific skills tested, associated with a large effect size for the Recognition scale (eta(2)(p) =.33 or.28), a medium to high effect size for the Individual Support scale (eta(2)(p) =.34 or.13), and a medium effect size for the Participation scale for a part of the sample (eta(2)(p) =.07), while for the other part of the sample the effect was not significant. Conclusion: The developed requirement situation-oriented and casework-based seminar is highly effective in promoting situation-specific skills in preservice teachers with relation to the central demands of inclusive PE: recognition, individual support, and participation. Nevertheless, further research on requirement situations in PE and casework in PETE is needed.