Abstract
Purpose: Although Italy formally allows specialist physical education (PE) teachers in primary schools, PE is still often delivered by generalist teachers—especially in early grades. This can limit instructional quality and hinder students’ motor competence development (e.g., Truelove et al., 2021), highlighting the need to both investigate and support generalist teachers’ PE instruction. To address this issue, an eight-week competence-oriented PE program was developed and implemented by generalist teachers to enhance motor competence among 3rd and 4th graders. The program included four thematic modules (e.g., ‘‘balancing and rolling’’), each featuring movement games and learning tasks offering a wide range of difficulty levels and requiring completion of peer- and self-assessment worksheets. This study investigated how the PE program was implemented by generalist teachers in their regular classroom settings.
Methods: The PE program was implemented by eight female primary teachers in Alto Adige/Su¨dtirol. Six implementation outcomes— adoption, acceptability, fidelity, feasibility, implementation cost, appropriateness, and potential sustainability (Proctor et al., 2011) - were assessed through semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was used to analyze the data.
Results: Preliminary analysis showed that most teachers joined the project to enhance their PE teaching competence (adoption). The PE program met their expectations and was generally perceived as meaningful due to the relevant content and structured design (acceptability). Teachers largely adhered to core program components (fidelity). Implementation was partially supported by the research team and peer collaboration, though additional guidance would have been beneficial; school facilities and equipment were mostly sufficient, while time constraints often led to higher effort and selective use of learning tasks (feasibility). No additional financial costs were reported (implementation cost). Teachers found the program appropriate for supporting students’ motor competence and self-awareness, and aligned with curriculum requirements and their teaching practices; peer-assessment, however, was often challenging for students (appropriateness). Teachers showed strong interest in using key program components over longer periods in the future, though many noted that full implementation would require simplifying assessment formats (potential sustainability).
Conclusions: This study showed that generalist teachers were able to implement competence-oriented PE in their classroom settings, while also highlighting challenges in the process. The findings point to causal mechanism through which program-based support may enhance generalist teachers’ instructional quality. Further research is needed to examine the PE program’s impact on students’ motor competence