Ready to teach or just ready to move on? an investigation into levels of preparedness in physical education graduates

This paper arose from a study that examined how Physical Eduaction Teacher Education graduates in Scotland view their levels of prepardness as probatinoary teachers and early phase practitiones.

The European Commission (2012) offered that the quality of teaching and learning is of key importance in determining student performance. However, in the current education climate teachers face unprecedented challenges. In Scotland the prominence given to Health and Wellbeing has resulted in increased repsonsibility for Physical Education graduates. Alongside this Fletcher and Casey (2014) highlight the need for Physical Education to undertake a profound transformation. Given the importance that is placed on teacher quality; the evolving curriculm in Scotland and the need for reform in Physical Education: it is imperative that the next generation of physical education teachers are prepared to teach within this context.

Preparation is a concept that is frequently used in education, throughout initial teacher education preparation is emphasised as being one of the key constructs of an effective teacher leading to confidence or ‘teacher efficacy’ in their ability to promote students learning (Hoy, 2000). Bandura (1986, 1997) offered that there were four sources of information used to construct a persons self-efficacy and in the case of teaching there are strong links between preparedness and teacher efficacy with particular reference to their experiences (Protheroe, 2008). In further work Hoy (2000) suggests that some of the most important factors that contribute to the development of teacher efficacy are mastery experiences during their initial teacher education and into their induction year. Given the importance placed on teacher efficacy and the evident links to teacher preparedness it is essential to investigate the levels of preparedness in probationary teachers and early phase teachers.