Teaching Readiness in Physical Education Teacher Education: Preservice Teachers’ Content Development and Adaptations to Lesson Plans During School Placement

The purpose of this study was to examine (1) preservice teachers’ (PSTs) content development in terms of task selection and specialized content knowledge (SCK) index; and (2) what adaptations to core practices PSTs make in lesson plans during school placement. Content development data were retrieved from 111 lesson plans of 11 PSTs. Data on adaptations to lesson plans following reflection-on-action with a supervisor were retrieved from 112 lesson plans of 10 PSTs. The data were coded by trained coders and analyzed descriptively. The PSTs planned an average of 4.51 tasks per lesson plan, and all had an SCK index below the 3.0 benchmark. On average, PSTs made 1.16 adaptations per lesson plan, with most being made to content development(46%) and management (26%). The PSTs demonstrated low SCK in the content they were teaching. The low number of adaptations might indicate PSTs’ difficulties in adapting their teaching.