Effects of Health-Related Physical Education Teacher Education on PE Student Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge and on Female Pupils` Health-Related Knowledge and Understanding

The purpose of our study was to investigate a health-related PETE program on two levels: 1) the health-related PCK of PE student teachers participating in the PETE program and 2) the changes in HKU of female pupils participating in the PE lessons developed throughout the PETE program. To study the PCK of the PE student teachers, we conducted a document analysis and examined the PE lesson plans developed during the PETE program. For the investigation of pupils` HKU, a controlled pre-post test was conducted over eight weeks with pupils in an intervention (n = 113) and a control group (n = 61). The results for PCK showed the PE student teachers` ability to select health-related and competence-based learning tasks . A significant intervention effect with a small effect size was found regarding pupils` HKU. In conclusion, PETE can improve PE teachers’ health-related professional competence resulting in higher pupils’ HKU.