The relevance of content-related interest and professional development behavior for the professional knowledge of physical education teachers

Abstract

Whereas in other subjects it has already been possible to generate a wide range of findings on the relationships and effects between professional knowledge and other aspects of teacher competence, these are still largely lacking for the subject of physical education. The present study is based on a sample of n = 329 (future) physical education teachers and aims to test a theory-based mediator model describing the relationships of content-related interest with continuing professional development behavior and professional knowledge of physical education teachers. The results confirm the theoretically hypothesized mediator model, according to which the effect of content-related interest on professional knowledge is mediated by continuing professional development behavior.