The Effectiveness of Mentoring-Based Professional Development on Physical Education Teachers’ Pedometer and Computer Efficacy and Anxiety

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of mentoring-based professional development on physical education teachers’ efficacy, and found increases in computer and pedometer efficacy.

Abstract

The purpose of our study was to examine the impact of mentoring-based professional development on physical education teachers’ efficacy. Experienced mentor teachers were paired ( n = 15) with inexperienced protégé teachers (n = 15) at the beginning of a yearlong intervention study. It was hypothesized that teachers would increase their efficacy to use pedometers and computers to enhance instruction, and reduce their computer anxiety. Repeated-measures ANOVAs for mentors and protégés revealed a variety of significant main effects. We found increases in computer and pedometer efficacy. A second set of repeated-measures ANOVAs based on mentors’, protégés’, and control groups’ scores revealed a significant interaction for computer efficacy, indicating that both mentors and protégés significantly increased their computer efficacy compared with the control group. Finally, a significant interaction effect was also found for pedometer efficacy, again indicating that both groups significantly increased their efficacy compared with control teachers.