The effectiveness of cumulative interventions on the classroom management-related performance of pre-service teachers in physical education: improvement of knowledge and situation-specific skills alone is not sufficient

This intervention study, based on the competence model developed by Blömeke et al. (2015) and using classroom management (CM) in physical education (PE) as an example, investigates the effects of three developmental components. Specifically, it investigates how the following components influence the CM-related performance development of pre-service teachers in primary schools (PSTs): (1) improvement of CM-related knowledge, (2) enhancement of CM-related perception, interpretation, and decision-making skills (PID), and (3) implementation of CM-related quality criteria within one's own teaching practice. Four interventions were carried out in which all three CM-related competence facets (knowledge, PID, and performance) were measured before and after the respective interventions. One intervention group (<i>IG</i> _<i>1</i> ) participated solely in an internship. Targeted interventions were developed for IGs_2-4, creating cumulative interventions, whereby a further development component was integrated into the next higher intervention stage in addition to the internship. The results indicate that a general internship (<i>IG</i> _<i>1</i> ) had no impact on the performance development of the PSTs. In IG₂, targeted interventions led to a significant advancement in knowledge, and in IG₃, both knowledge and PID improved significantly, but this had no influence on the performance development. Only in IG₄ was a significant progression of performance observed. The results indicate that improvements in CM-related knowledge and CM-related PID alone do not lead to an enhancement in CM-related performance. Instead, progress in CM-related performance is achieved through teaching and learning arrangements that incorporate additionally the components of coaching, video-based feedback, self-reflection, and training.