Abstract
This cross-sectional study was designed to evaluate the self-perceived professional competences of Italian physical education (PE) teachers. For this purpose, a self-administered questionnaire has been designed toexamine a broad scope of general and subject-specific competences. The participants, 484 Italian PE teachers from the north-eastern part of Italy, evaluated their professional competences on a four-level Likert scale. Factor analysis is used for the examination of the internal structure of the competence field. The results show that the self-perception of their competence profile was quite complex, consisting of 13 factors, which togetherexplain 51.1% of the total variance. Didactic approaches, which represent the first factor and explain 31.3% of the total variance, seem to be the most informative for their estimations of how effectively they can teach theirspecific subject. The teachers feel insufficiently competent in some general areas, such as the use of information and communications technology, communication in foreign language, scientific research work, initiative, and entrepreneurial spirit. They do not have sufficient abilities to bring to PE the recent sports activities in which teenagers currently participate in their free time. The outcomes of the present study may aid in the future updating of PE teacher education study programmes and the designing of a creative system of lifelong training programmes.
Highlights
Teachers and their competences, in particular, are attributed a crucial role in fulfilling quality education; teacher training and lifelong learning programmes should be included among the priority political tasks of European countries (OECD, 2009; Peklaj, 2015).A competence is described as a complex combination of knowledge, skills, understanding, values, attitudes, and desires that leads to effective, embodied human action in a particular domain (Deakin Crick, 2008)
When modernising study programmes, which was carried out in parallel with the Bologna reform in the majority of European countries, the Directorate for Education and Culture of the European Commission (2005) defined common European principles for teachers’ competences as guidelines, which should be adhered to by the creators of educational policies on national and regional levels: the profession of a teacher should be based on a high degree of education, it should be included in a lifelong learning framework, it should be mobile, and it should be based on partnership
This study showed that physical education (PE) teachers could critically evaluate their own perceived level of and, at times, lack of competences
Summary
In particular, are attributed a crucial role in fulfilling quality education; teacher training and lifelong learning programmes should be included among the priority political tasks of European countries (OECD, 2009; Peklaj, 2015).A competence is described as a complex combination of knowledge, skills, understanding, values, attitudes, and desires that leads to effective, embodied human action in a particular domain (Deakin Crick, 2008). When modernising study programmes, which was carried out in parallel with the Bologna reform in the majority of European countries, the Directorate for Education and Culture of the European Commission (2005) defined common European principles for teachers’ competences as guidelines, which should be adhered to by the creators of educational policies on national and regional levels: the profession of a teacher should be based on a high degree of education, it should be included in a lifelong learning framework, it should be mobile, and it should be based on partnership. In studying and defining the competences of teachers of individual subjects, Laporte (1997) emphasised the importance of a common (i.e., European) approach to physical education (PE), which included uniform concepts and PE teacher education (PETE) programmes. When talking about educational affairs in Europe in general, the responsibility for education is still fully regulated on the national levels
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