Teacher dispositions have been considered a critical part of quality teaching and should be addressed during teacher education programs (Darling-Hammond, 2006; Wayda & Lund, 2005; Imig & Imig, 2006). Regardless of the emphasis on disposition there have been limited studies conducted on the topic. Hence, little is known about the impact or change of teacher candidates' disposition over the course of a Physical Education Teacher Education Program (PETE). The purpose of this study was to examine (a) if teacher candidates improve their dispositions throughout a PETE program and (b) if teacher candidates’ self-assessment on disposition becomes more correlated to the instructors’ evaluation as they are educated and experienced throughout the PETE program.
Method:
Over the last 5 years disposition assessments have been conducted throughout the entire PETE program and three teacher education faculty have been consistently addressing disposition assessment in each level of PETE courses (i.e., an entry level teacher education course-PE 290, field based teaching method course-PE 310, & student teaching-PE 400). The modified disposition assessment instrument from Wayda and Lund (2005) was completed by both teacher candidates (self-evaluation) and instructors to evaluate teacher candidates' dispositions. A total of 48 teacher candidates completed the PETE program and their individual disposition assessment data from each course level (i.e., an entry level teacher education course, field based teaching method course, & student teaching) were analyzed for this study.
Analysis/Results:
A multivariate analysis of variance with repeated measures yielded a significant main effect for course levels (p< .001). The post hoc paired t-tests confirmed that teacher candidates’ disposition significantly improved in each course level throughout the PETE program. Pearson’s correlation reported that both teacher candidates and instructors’ rating had a higher correlation during the student teaching (r=.679, p< .05) and less correlation in the field based method course (r=.369, p<.05) but no correlation in the entry level of PETE course (r=.187, p> .05).
Conclusions:
Over the 5 years of the longitudinal study, data revealed that a PETE program has a positive impact on teacher candidates’ disposition development with a significant extent of the disposition improvement over time as well as the candidates’ maturity and assimilation toward the instructors’ disposition assessment.