Developing pre-service teacher efficacy during PETE programmes: helping pre-service teachers find their way

Magill, C ORCID: 0000-0002-6043-6864, Rudd, J and Cronin, C ORCID: 0000-0002-1687-4437 (2025) Developing pre-service teacher efficacy during PETE programmes: helping pre-service teachers find their way. Sport, Education and Society. ISSN 1357-3322

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Abstract

Physical education (PE) teacher efficacy describes the belief, skills, and competency to facilitate teaching and learning activities within a PE setting. This is important because highly efficacious teachers have a significant impact on learning outcomes for students. This makes teacher efficacy a significant factor in the development and retention of teachers. Yet, despite international consensus on its importance, practical strategies to develop pre-service teacher efficacy, during PE teacher education (PETE) programmes, have been underexplored. As PE teacher educators working in higher education (HE), we have built on existing research, including our own, to introduce an alternative anthropological perspective on how PE teacher educators can develop pre-service teachers’ efficacy. Specifically, this conceptual paper advances the development of pre-service teacher efficacy using a ‘wayfinding’ approach. Wayfinding refers to the skilled actions individuals develop as they navigate physical, social, and temporal spaces to find their own way. Thus, shifting the development of efficacy from a decontextualised and competency-based development process, to one where efficacy is cultivated and grown in professional learning contexts and communities. Through this, we position pre-service teachers as wayfinders who are actively navigating landscapes of a PETE programme, with PE teacher educators providing guidance throughout the journey. To enact this reconceptualisation, we provide illustrative examples so that PE teacher educators can guide pre-service teachers to find their way through three important PETE programme constructs: (1) school experience placements (SEP), (2) advanced subject knowledge (ASK), and (3) professional learning communities, including role models (PLC). This approach may improve the design and curricular content of future PETE programmes and support PE teacher educators’ ability to develop efficacious pre-service teachers.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	1301 Education Systems; 1302 Curriculum and Pedagogy; 1303 Specialist Studies in Education; Sport Sciences; 3901 Curriculum and pedagogy; 3904 Specialist studies in education; 4207 Sports science and exercise
Subjects:	L Education > LC Special aspects of education G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation Leisure > GV561 Sports
Divisions:	Sport and Exercise Sciences
Publisher:	Informa UK Limited
Date of acceptance:	27 November 2025
Date of first compliant Open Access:	11 December 2025
Date Deposited:	11 Dec 2025 14:18
Last Modified:	11 Dec 2025 14:18
DOI or ID number:	10.1080/13573322.2025.2598294
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/27700

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