Promoting schoolchildren’s self-esteem in physical education: testing the effectiveness of a five-month teacher training

Background: Schoolchildren’s personality development is considered acentral goal of physical education (PE). With regard to the relationshipbetween psychological well-being and global self-esteem over the lifecourse, the promotion of positive self-esteem is an issue of particularsignificance. Past research revealed that PE taught with an individualizedteacher frame of reference (iTFR) and a reflexive teaching style isassociated with positive effects on facets of children’s perceived sportscompetence. However, it remains an open question whether thisteaching styles has the potential to promote positive self-esteem.
Purpose: The present study investigated whether afive-month teachertraining, aimed to enhance the teachers’iTFR and their reflexiveteaching style in PE, has a positive effect on students’perceived sportscompetence and their global self-esteem. To analyse theimplementation quality, changes in students’perceived iTFR andperceived reflexive teaching style were investigated.
Method: A total of 21 teachers were assigned to either an interventiongroup (n= 13), receiving thefive-month teacher training, or a controlgroup (n= 8) consisting of regular teaching without teacher training. Theteacher training encompassedfive three-hour consecutive sessionsduring which the teachers acquired theoretical and practical knowledgeabout the promotion of competence perceptions in PE with a reflexiveteaching style and an iTFR. Between the sessions, the teachers wereinstructed to implement an iTFR and a reflexive teaching style into theirown PE classes. To evaluate the effects of the teacher training, theirstudents’(N= 315, 53.7% girls,Mage= 13.2 y,SDage= 1.3 y) perceivedteaching style (iTFR and reflexive teaching), perceived sportscompetence and global self-esteem were measured with paper-pencilquestionnaires at three measurement points (pre, post and follow-up).
Findings: Linear mixed effect models showed that students of theintervention group reported an increase in their teachers’reflexiveteaching style, but there were no changes with regard to iTFR. Withregard to students’perceived sports competence and global self-esteem,there were significant interaction effects between time and group over aperiod of eight months (from pre-test to follow-up), indicating positiveeffects on these self-concept dimensions due to the teacher training.
Conclusion: The present study indicates that a long-term teacher trainingsupports PE teachers to implement teaching styles with the aim topromote students’self-concept. Furthermore, thefindings lead to theassumption that a more pronounced iTFR in combination with anenhanced reflexive teaching style has the potential to positively influenceschoolchildren’s perceived sports competence and global self-esteem