The Professional Competences of Physical Education Teachers from North-Eastern Italy

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 to examine 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 together explain 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 their specific 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.

Keywords

• physical education
• teachers
• professional areas
• perceived competences