University students’ perceptions of competency importance for physical education majors as sports training instructors: an exploratory factor analysis

The career pathways of physical education (PE) majors are becoming increasingly diverse, with sports training and exercise instruction emerging as potential areas of professional practice. However, limited empirical research has examined university students’ perceptions of the importance of competencies required for PE majors serving as sports training instructors. This study aimed to examine university students’ perceived importance of professional competencies required for PE majors to serve as sports training instructors, explore the underlying structure of these importance ratings, and investigate differences in overall perceived competence importance across gender, grade level, weekly exercise frequency, and previous sports training experience. A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted among first- to third-year undergraduate students from non-physical education disciplines at a single university in China. Of 1,245 questionnaires collected, 1,152 valid responses were retained. The questionnaire assessed university students’ perceived importance of 15 professional competency indicators using a five-point Likert scale, covering five content categories: professional and technical skills, teaching implementation, interpersonal interaction, professional qualities, and safety-related competencies. Cronbach’s alpha, the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin test, Bartlett’s test of sphericity, and exploratory factor analysis using principal axis factoring were conducted. Independent-samples t-tests and one-way analyses of variance were used to examine differences across student characteristics. All 15 competence indicators received mean importance ratings above 4.00. Patience, safety awareness, sports injury management, and emergency response received the highest ratings, each with a mean of 4.45. Professional technical level (61.5%), teaching explanation ability (42.3%), and action demonstration ability (37.2%) were the three most frequently selected priority competencies. The 15 competency-importance indicators demonstrated high internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0.987). Exploratory factor analysis identified one common factor, explaining 83.592% of the variance after extraction, with factor loadings ranging from 0.881 to 0.935. This factor was interpreted as representing the overall perceived importance of sports training instructor competencies. Significant differences were found by gender and weekly exercise frequency, but not by grade level or previous sports training experience. The exercise-frequency finding was exploratory, with a small effect size (η² = 0.008), and should be interpreted cautiously. University students perceived professional and technical skills, teaching implementation, interpersonal interaction, professional qualities, and safety-related competencies as important competencies for PE majors serving as sports training instructors. The importance ratings of these competencies exhibited a single-factor structure, suggesting a shared underlying dimension in students’ perceptions. These findings may inform PE teacher education programs in considering practical learning opportunities that address competencies relevant to sports training contexts alongside traditional technical and instructional preparation. This study extends research on physical education teacher education by highlighting university students’ perceptions of the importance of competencies beyond sport-specific knowledge and teaching techniques for sports training instruction. The findings provide empirical insights that may inform curriculum development, practical training, and experiential learning opportunities for PE majors preparing for diverse professional roles.