The Effect of the CoI on Preservice Teachers’ Self-Efficacy in Physical Education

Teaching physical education (PE) involves adopting contemporary instructional models and teaching methods. Especially at an undergraduate level, the teachers’ participation in professional communities can support their self-efficacy in adopting context-specific instructional models, leading to an improvement in student learning. The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of preservice PE teachers’ participation in a professional development (PD) program designed according to the principles of the community of inquiry (CoI) on their self-efficacy in teaching physical education using instructional models. Twenty-three preservice PE teachers (male = 11, female = 12) at the University of Athens, Greece, participated during the 2022–2023 spring semester in a PD program specifically designed according to the CoI principles to support them in the use of PE curriculum models in a secondary school practicum. A pre-post convergent mixed methodology was used, with quantitative (Ohio State Teacher Efficacy Scale, OSTES) and qualitative (semi-structured interviews) data evaluating the changes in the participants’ self-efficacy in the use of instructional models. Results showed that even though the program was evaluated as effective in terms of supporting the participants’ knowledge and skills on the use of the models, there were no statistically significant changes in their OSTES self-efficacy indices. Given the complexity of PE teaching and the latent structure of the self-efficacy trait, a longer duration of similar PD programs is suggested.