The teaching discipline doesn't matter? An assessment of preservice teachers' perception of the value of professional experience in attaining teacher competencies

This paper is one in a series of papers interrogating some of the fundamental bases of what is seen as good professional experience in initial teacher education (ITE). This paper uses the case study of Health/Physical Education (HPE) students' perceptions of their professional experience, compared to other teaching disciplines, in one regional university to examine the seemingly taken-for-granted view that professional experience in all teaching disciplines can be assessed according to generic professional standards. In this case when HPE students were surveyed on their views of their ability to satisfy the NSW Institute of Teachers' Professional Teaching Standards during practical experience their perceptions differed from students in other disciplines. A number of reasons were posited for this including the notion that each discipline has its own particular pedagogy as suggested by Schulman (1986, 1987). Suggestions as to future research are provided.