Competencies in physical education teaching: Slovenian teachers' views and future perspectives

This paper examines Slovenian physical education (PE) teachers' (n = 85) estimations of their own actual and desired professional competencies with the aim of diagnosing the main needs of practising PE teachers and resolving them within a revised Slovenian Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) curricula and through continued professional development programmes. Results show that PE teachers realistically acknowledge their own deficiencies within certain areas of practice, that during their training they are required to develop knowledge that is not directly applicable in PE classes, thus further detracting from the development of more relevant practically orientated knowledge, and that the reorganization of the Slovenian educational system during the last 15 years presented widespread demands that were not accompanied by appropriate professional institutional support. Their relative disinterest in the competencies developed through the subdisciplinary studies indicates that the mode and contents of the subdisciplinary subjects in the present PETE curriculum should be reviewed and refocused on the contents of the revised primary and secondary school curricula.