Exploring the differences in teaching perspectives between Australian pre-service and graduate physical education teachers

Limited investigation has been undertaken into Australian physical educators’ teaching beliefs and intentions and those that have been researched have tended to utilise ‘qualitative’ research methods. The present study addresses a gap in the literature by exploring the differences in teaching perspectives between Australian preservice and graduate physical education teachers. The teaching perspectives inventory (TPI) was administered to pre-service physical education teachers (n=105) graduate physical education teachers (n=37). Each TPI item was linked to one of five key teaching perspectives (apprenticeship, developmental, nurturing, social reform & transmission). Average teaching perspective scores were calculated for each of the five teaching perspectives and the proportions of dominant and recessive teaching perspectives were identified within both groups. Independent t-tests and multivariate chi-square statistical tests were conducted to compare mean teaching perspective scores and proportions of dominant and recessive teaching perspectives. The findings revealed that graduate physical education teachers had significantly higher average scores for the apprenticeship, developmental and social reform teaching perspectives. The nurturing teaching perspective was the most common dominant teaching perspective and the social reform teaching perspective was the most common recessive teaching perspective for both pre-service and graduate physical education teachers. The findings suggest that teacher training programs have the ability to develop and inform knowledge of teaching approaches to facilitate higher scores for a broader range of teaching perspectives in comparison to pre-service teachers commencing their teacher training.