How three athletes socialized to be PE teachers

This paper is concerned with a qualitative study of how three "athletes" taking the two-year full-time teacher education programme socialised to become PE teachers. Data were collected through interviewing and writing of reflective journals along four data collection phases. Through adoption the interpretive research paradigm, athletes' socialisation process and themes of professional conceptions and socialising strategies were identified inductively. They were found shaping their orientations from possessing sports continuation and coaching orientations, expecting practical experiences with pedagogical emphasis from their teacher education programme; experiencing "reality shock" in their field experience and finally reshaping their orientations professionally during the final phase of their pre-service socialisation. They shifted their professional conceptions of the purposes of teaching PE from bringing pupils with fun to attending the managerial skills and finally to focusing on motivating pupils to learn as important criteria for PE teaching. They expanded their socialising strategies from adjusting themselves internally to reflecting their practices in action. The teacher education programme was found exerting strong socialising impacts on this group of recruits. The findings provide information on the socialisation process of a particular group of recruits and generate implications on the teacher education programme accordingly. Copyright © 2003 Thai Association of Health, Physical Education and Recreation.