Das Stresslabor: Theorie- und evidenzbasierte Entwicklung und Evaluation einer Intervention zur Bewältigung stressreicher Unterrichtssituationen für angehende Sportlehrkräfte

Physical education teachers are confronted with a variety of demands on a daily basis
and often experience stress. In order to be able to deal with these demands in their later professional life, students studying to become physical education teachers should already deal with sources of stress and how to handle stress appropriately. However, there is a lack of studies that identify teaching-related sources of stress in physical education teacher education (PETE) students. Likewise, no interventions exist to date to teach PETE students how to handle stress. Therefore, the overarching aim of this dissertation is to develop and evaluate a theory- and evidence-based intervention for handling stress for PETE students. In order to close the first research gap, potential sources of stress among experienced physical education (PE) teachers, pre-service PE teachers and PETE students were investigated and compared (Publication I). The results of the cross-sectional study showed that there were differences in the perception of sources of stress between PE teachers at different career stages. Compared to experienced PE teachers and pre-service PE teachers,
PETE students perceived specific teaching-related situations (e.g., pupils’ discipline
problems) as a source of stress more frequently. From this, it can be concluded that PETE students should be prepared to handle stress in teaching situations.
Based on this finding, among others, an intervention for PETE students to handle stress in teaching situations was developed and evaluated (Publication II, III, IV). The
intervention, called the stress lab, was developed, consisting of an e-learning unit for
acquiring knowledge on stress-related topics and a practical unit for practicing coping competences using video-based, real-life teaching situations. The stress lab was evaluated in several steps. First, lab studies were conducted to analyze the satisfaction of PETE students and their subjective coping competences (knowledge and practical skills) after participating in the e-learning unit and the practical unit (Publication II). Results showed that PETE students were satisfied with both units and perceived a high level of stress-related knowledge after participating in the e-learning unit and a high level of practical skills to cope with stress (e.g., coping strategies) after participating in the practical unit. Since the lab studies could not clarify whether the PETE students actually experience learning success by participating in the stress lab, a cluster-randomized intervention study was conducted (Publication III). The aim of the intervention study was to examine whether participation in the stress lab enhances perceived coping competences (knowledge and practical skills) in PETE students in handling teaching situations and whether participation in the e-learning
unit before the practical unit can lead to more perceived competences. The results showed that PETE students reported more knowledge and practical skills in handling teaching situations after participating in the stress lab than before. The PETE students who participated in both units of the stress lab perceived more coping competences than those who only participated in the practical unit. In order to find the underlying mechanism behind this result, it was examined whether satisfaction with the stress lab could have favored the learning success of the PETE students who participated in both units of the stress lab (Publication IV). The results showed that although the PETE students were more satisfied with the stress lab than those who only participated in the practical unit, satisfaction did not have a favorable influence on learning success.
Within this dissertation the first intervention that prepares PETE students to handle stress in teaching situations was developed and evaluated. The present findings show that the stress lab is suitable for teaching participants subjective coping competences and testing them. This dissertation therefore makes an important contribution to the state of research and also to the state of practice in the context of (physical education) teacher education training. Future studies should examine the transferability of what has been learned to real-live teaching situations and the sustainability of the learning success. In terms of practice, the stress lab can be implemented at institutions of physical education teacher education training and modified for the implementation at institutions of general teacher education training.