Perceived Effectiveness of PETE in Preparing Teachers for CSPAP

Background/Purpose: The Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program (CSPAP) is a nationally recommended strategy for increasing children’s physical activity. CSPAP outlines key roles for physical education teachers and generalist classroom teachers. However, little is known about how effective preservice programs are in preparing these teachers for CSPAP. The purpose of this study was to examine physical education teacher education (PETE) faculty’s perceptions of their undergraduate programs’ effectiveness in preparing preservice physical education, and classroom, teachers for CSPAP roles.

Method: A working list of program directors, with their emails, for all undergraduate PETE programs in the United States was obtained from colleagues and systematically revised using an Internet search. The final list included 544 contacts. An electronic survey was constructed containing 33 items divided into six sections, based on the CSPAP literature: (a) quality physical education, (b) before-/after-school opportunities, (c) school employee wellness, (d) school employee involvement, (e) family and community involvement, and (f) academic classroom and recess: role of the classroom teacher. The stem, “My undergraduate PETE program prepares preservice physical education teachers to effectively…” preceded the items in the first five sections. The same stem was used in the final section except that the term “physical education teachers” was substituted with “classroom teachers”. Response options for all items included “Strongly Disagree”, “Disagree”, “Agree”, “Strongly Agree”, and “Don’t Know”. The survey was content validated by three CSPAP experts and pilot tested with two PETE faculty. A link to the survey was sent to all contacts with an invitation to participate, an informed consent form, instructions, and a request to recommend other faculty for participation. Several follow-up emails were sent to increase the response rate. Altogether, 175 faculty participated.

Analysis/Results: The mean frequency of aggregated “Agree” and “Strongly Agree” responses was calculated across items for each section of the survey. Perceived effectiveness was strongest for quality physical education (94%), followed by school employee involvement (73%), academic classroom and recess: role of the classroom teacher (70%), family and community involvement (55%), before-/after-school opportunities (48%), and school employee wellness (47%). 

Conclusions: PETE programs may need to give more emphasis to preparing teachers for a school wide approach to physical activity promotion, particularly in terms of involving families and community organizations, maximizing children’s physical activity in before- and after-school programs, and supporting school employee wellness. Increased training in these areas could help to galvanize a broader base of activists for promoting children’s physical activity.