Development and evaluation of the stress lab – A tool for prospective physical education teachers

Physical education (PE) teachers often experience stress (Alsalhe et al., 2021). To prepare prospective PE teachers for dealing with stressful situations, the stress lab was developed for university education. It consists of an e-learning unit to provide knowledge about stress and a video-based unit to practice dealing with real-life teaching situations. The aim of the present research was to test the feasibility of the stress lab by evaluating both units in three sub-studies.
In study (1), the e-learning unit was presented and 24 PE students were surveyed on subjective acceptance (0 = very bad to 10 = very good), among other factors. In study (2), after presenting the real-life teaching situations by video 34 PE students, 22 PE pre-service teachers and 27 PE teachers were asked to rate the stress level (0 = no stress to 10 = very much stress). In study (3), eight PE students tested the practical unit and were surveyed on subjective acceptance.
Descriptive results showed (1) high acceptance of the e-learning unit (M = 7.12, SD = 1.73). (2) Some of the videos were perceived as more stressful than others (e.g., video “pupils complain” M = 5.27, SD = 2.12 compared to “pupils lack attention” M = 3.67, SD = 2.33). (3) The practical unit was highly accepted (M = 7.75, SD = 1.49).
Results reveal that the stress lab appears to be suitable for preparing PE students for stressful situations. The stress lab will be integrated into university training of future PE teachers.