The Quality of Practical Pedagogical Training During the Epidemic Through the Eyes of the Slovenian Physical Education Student Teachers

Abstract

In 2020, physical education teacher education (PETE) students of the Faculty of Sport of the University of Ljubljana (N = 46) had to complete a large part of the practical pedagogical training online. Using an online questionnaire, we investigated how they delivered distance learning in physical education (PE) at Primary Schools, the extent to which they achieved their objectives, encouraged students to move, delivered content, and assessed. The delivery mostly depended on whether the school included PE in the timetable. On average, most lessons took the form of independent student activity following written or recorded instructions, and the others took the form of online outdoor or indoor live classes. The latter were often used to give instructions, check tasks and motivate. Some schools organized at least one sports day (26%), active break (21%), or active class break (9%). Most student teachers chose different objectives compared to a traditional form of instruction: they emphasized the development of motor and functional abilities rather than the acquisition of new motor and social skills. All student teachers delivered physical fitness, followed by athletics (59%), dance and aerobics (43%), ball games (except volleyball 33%) were represented in a smaller proportion. 21% of the students taught content continuously. The assessment was done by 71.4% of the students (many of them only assessed the completion of the tasks) and evaluation by only 31.0%. They used a workout diary, videos or photos, or live conference calls. The average response rate was 71% for 1st-6th graders and 59% for 7th-9th graders. 21% did not attempt to reach non-responding students, while 10% indicated that they did not have problems with nonresponding.