Exploring Gender Differences in PE Teacher Candidates' Specialized Content Knowledge Growth

Authors: Keirra Ettere, Obidiah Atkinson

SUNY Campus: SUNY Cortland

Presentation Type: Poster

Location: Old Union Hall

Presentation #: 35

Timeslot: Session D 3:00-4:00 PM

Abstract: SHAPE America Standard 1 for PETE emphasizes that teacher candidates (TCs) must demonstrate specialized content knowledge (SCK). TCs SCK can be evaluated by their ability to content develop (SCK-CD). However, little is known on how SCK-CD differs between male and female TCs. This study employed a quasi-experimental design to (a) examine differences in TCs SCK-CD by gender at pre-and post-test, and (b) to investigate the extent to which a teaching methods course improved TCs SCK-CD by gender. TCs (N=42) SCK-CD was assessed using content maps before and after lectures with four teaching labs. An independent samples t-test revealed that SCK-CD scores at pre-test did not significantly (p=.664) differ between males (M=2.42) and females (M=2.41) and at post-test, SCK-CD scores did not significantly (p=.646) differ between males (M=3.12) and females (M=3.34). To determine whether the teaching methods course significantly improved SCK-CD by gender, a 2 Gender (Male, Female) × 2 Time (Pre-test, Post-test) repeated measures ANOVA on TCs SCK-CD revealed a significant main effect for Time (p<.001), indicating that TCs SCK-CD improved from pre-test to post-test. The main effect of Gender was not significant (p=.752), suggesting that male and female TCs did not differ in SCK-CD scores. In addition, the Time × Gender interaction was non-significant (p=.485), indicating that the extent of improvement in SCK-CD was not influenced by TCs gender. Our findings indicate that the teaching methods course improved TCs SCK-CD as 57% reached the 3.0 SCK index at post-test. Implications and future research are discussed.