Received 7 February 2016; accepted 21 August 2016; published 24 August 2016

ABSTRACT

This study measures the impact of additional training in communication (Body Language and Public Speaking) on the sense of self-efficacy trainee teachers of physical education during the preparation internship working life. An experimental group that received additional theoretical and practical training in the classroom communication was compared to a control group that followed the initial training course. Two measures of this sentiment were taken at different times using the questionnaire “Perceptions of self-efficacy of teachers (PAE)” cited by Crahay & Laduron (2009) . This device allows to apprehend two dimensions: the perception of overall effectiveness and perceived self-efficacy. The analysis provides students who have received training in Body Language and Public Speaking to express a sense of greater efficiency than those who have received usual initial training.

Keywords:

Training, Physical Education, Trainees, Body Language and Public Speaking, Perceptions of Self-Efficacy of Teachers (PAE)

1. Introduction

The new political, social, demographic, economic and cultural realities have forced the company to think about the school, its mission and organization. You operate these changes in society that generate new tensions and are significantly changing the work of the teacher.

This work requires the development of high-level professional skills that can be acquired at the discretion of trial and error but must instead be systematically taught during the training of a professional or a cultured professional.

For example, in Quebec, a major restructuring of teacher training was conducted by the Ministry of Education of Quebec (MEQ) in 2001 (Ministry of Education, Government of Quebec, 2001) , new programs that resulted in emphasis on professional development. This reference basic skill for initial training focuses on training pratique. Indeed, it helps to solve the difficulties experienced during preparation of internship working life ( Gervais & Desrosiers 2005, Ministry of Education, Government of Quebec, 2001) . Among the skills to master, there is that of communication.

Indeed, prospective teachers must take into account the distinction between the natural use of language and the ability to adjust linguistically and physically to the various communication situations (Ouellon & Dolbec 1999: p. 18) .

2. The Characteristics of a Professionalizing Training in “Body Language and Public Speaking”

Professionalizing training is training defined by Altet (1995) as a process that has a practical purpose. This purpose is characterized by the construction and development of professional skills useful for teaching practice.

However, such training completed by the practical exercise covers both “professional knowledge ownership plural, diverse, discipline, teaching and learning, but also know-how and life skills, as well as the construction of schemes of perception of thought and action that leverage such knowledge, knowledge and attitudes to good use in the exercise of the trade to adapt” (Altet, 1996) . This formation is characterized by the development of specific knowledge teaching, which emphasizes the importance of knowledge to teach in addition to the mastery of knowledge to teach. On the other hand, Paquay (2002) points out that training recognizes the specificity of teacher professionalism as work of interaction in teaching situation, contextualized and finalized. So education is a complex business which cannot be defined in its complexity in terms of tasks, methods and techniques planned a priori. Indeed, as can be deduced from the works of Perrenoud (1993) the difficulty of the teaching profession is explained by the fact that it occurs in professional situations of interactions with different learners, characterized by unpredictability in managing events, the multiplicity of decision making, the simulta- neity of tasks. In these professional situations, the model of the perfect teacher rational “decision maker” that plans, manages to advance his actions by algorithms strategies, do not legitimate. In addition, the teacher implements very different types of action: Tardif (1993) cites eight “traditional act, emotional, instrumental, normative, strategic, dramatic, expressive, communicative” that require teachers’ skills which are not identical and commensurable.

In other words, the effectiveness of the teacher’s pedagogical intervention is dependent on its ability to “frame and reframe” the complex problems it faces and at the same time to adapt to new situations (Paquay et al., 1996) .

Furthermore, training is not considered professional santé if it necessarily part of the practice and practical analysis, which is closer to the ground realities of professional practice. It is in learning to reflect on what we do in real life, to understand the functioning of the professional act and change the action. “The teacher will learn to reconstruct the analysis which he did, to say, to put into words, describe what is happening in a position to identify the knowledge and expertise it has mobilized the action.” (Kennedy, 1993) . Finally, this professionalizing said training should prepare for a reflection on action, to search for solutions to real problems, but also a reflection in action, within the meaning of Schön, thinking that makes the teacher can change his actions on the field and adapt. “The knowledge is a meta-analysis of key skill to develop training; it helps regulate the practice of the offense” (Altet, 1996) .

3. Self-Efficacy Feeling

In this orientation, in order to evaluate the teaching practices likely to implement school success, many researchers have opted for the personal efficacy feeling ( Heneman III, Kimball, & Milanowski, 2006 ; Dufour, & Chouinard, 2013; Ménard et al., 2012 ). This socio-cognitive psychology concept has been strongly developed by Bandura (1997, 2007) . The self-efficacy feeling is explained by the belief that one individual has in his capacity to succeed in a task, to act in such a way as to control the events which affect his existence (Bandura, 1997) . Severalresearchers agree to say that i twill constitute one of the best indicators of good teaching practices. Indeed, if he believes in his capacities and skills to influence learning, the teacher can change and evolve in his practices, and this has inevitably an impact on students’ involvement and success (Ménard et al., 2012) . As for Bandura (1994, 1997) four sources can strongly contribute to an individual’s self-efficacy feeling: the successful or controlled experience, the vicarious or indirect experience, the verbal persuasion and the psychological state. In this respect, Ménard et al. (2012) reports in his works that the most determining source of influence would be the actually lived and successful experience. Indeed, the successful or controlled experience can build a strong feeling of self-efficacy particularly if it presents a certain overcoming of current obstacles. In this case, a bad experience can have a positive impact in as far as it is perceived as an opportunity of development rather than an opportunity of failure.

This type of experience teaches the individual that it is compulsory to make efforts in order to succeed.

Several studies indicate that teachers who have a strong sense of self-efficacy are better equipped to face the challenges in the school environment (Dufour & Chouinard, 2013) . Indeed, the sense of self-efficacy is a full indicator of the effectiveness of training (Romano, 1996) and can therefore be seen as an indicator of the effect of a professional development program (Deaudelin & Dussault, 2002) .

The Complex Nature of Perceptions Self-Efficacy Pedagoguique of Teachers

According to Bandura (2003) perceived self-efficacy is defined as the belief an individual has in his ability to perform a given task and succeed. Self-efficacy is not a generalized psychological disposition. To this end, it must be considered in context that is to say in terms of areas of activity and/or tasks to be performed in relation to a goal. Therefore, Bandura (2003) prefers to speak built a multifaceted and insists that measures must be adapted to identify the best self-efficacy in specific areas. This is also on the assumptions that also rests defining the perception self-efficacy of teachers (teachers efficacy beliefs), it must indeed understood as the belief they have in their ability to influence the motivations and student learning to promote their success (Woolfolk Hoy, 2000) . This definition similarly refers to a multidimensional concept that envisages self-efficacy according to the practices concerned or the type of task to achieve as teacher: the actual teaching, assessment, regulation student learning, group management, etc. It also takes into account the complex nature of the actions and skills that the teacher implements and has to assess its effectiveness. With reference to these theoretical considerations, various models and measurement scales of perception of teacher self-efficacy were developed. Most of them have demonstrated the essential dimensions of self-efficacy of teachers; these relate to the following areas: teaching skills, classroom management skills, skills to motivate students’ skills to exercise control over social influences (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) .

Bandura also believes that teachers can assess their own effectiveness and differentiate from that faculty in general. For example, they may well consider themselves unable to influence student learning, while considering that general rules, teachers can. Building on these elements, Gibson and Dembo (1984) divided the concept of perceived self-efficacy in two aspects: one, concerning the perception of the general educational effectiveness and the other, perception personal effectiveness of the teacher. These researchers ontégalement developed a scale to measure the two sides in question, and that has been validated in French by Dussault & Deaudelin (2001) .

4. Research Objective

This research aims at elaborating and experimenting a training program concerning communication by trainee students at the end of initial training in physical education. The specific objective of the study was to check the impact of the communication training program on the trainee students’ self-efficacy feeling during the preparation internship working life.

5. Methodology

This research consists in a quasi-experimental study for the fact that there is manipulation of a variable, namely the training program of “Body Language And Public Speaking” and that there is an observation of its effect on the self-efficacy feeling of trainees in physical and sports education. In order to measure the effect of the training program on the trainees’ efficacy feeling, we have opted for a quantitative approach based on a questionnaire.

5.1. The Training Program in “Body Language and Public Speaking”

For the current study, an additional training program in “Body Language And Public Speaking” has been conceived in order to raise trainee’s perceptions self-efficacy pedagoguique in physical education (Crahay & Laduron, 2009) . The training program predicted 12 meetings lasting 2 hours, which makes 24 training hours. The training started in September and it ended in March.

Indeed, each meeting is associated to a thematic content which was presented, worked, discussed and experimented. A training meeting implies a theoretical content followed by its implementation. By the “active experience”, the trainees are asked to plan, organize and supervise teaching sequences then, outside meetings, they were invited to implement the elements of content in their training environment. In order to have a more positive effect between the experience and the learnings, successes were systematically under-lined while failures were discussed and analysed, thus allowing to make all the aspects of the training program cons- tructive.

Trainee teachers are invited to:

1) Work on oral expression techniques (breathing, voice, articulation, rhythm and repetition).

2) Improve nonverbal communication (territories, proximity, posture, gestures, facial and facial expressions).

3) Improve the perception of self.

4) Tame, regulate stress and control the speech.

5.2. The Participants

In this study, we have opted for a technique which does not admit probability. The sample formed by student volunteers consists of a first reference group n = 25 (15 men, 10 women) and the second experimental group n = 22 (9 men, 13 women). They are students at the end of training in physical education (Registered at their third year of License in Fundamental Physical Education) and their age was 23 ± 1 year. They completed a ques- tionnaire on two occasions during the school year 2015-2016.

5.3. The Process of Data Collection

All the participants have signed, by accepting to participate in the study that they consent to reply to the questionnaire. The questionnaire has been completed in two times, one time before the training, and a second time one week after the end of training and probation. The questionnaire required about ten minutes to be completed. For a questionnaire, which has been used as a pre-test, each one of the participants identified himself by a pseudonym in order to ensure anonymity and match the requirements.

5.4. The Instrument of Data Collection

In order to collect data, both groups have filled the survey of perceptions of self-efficacy of teachers (PAE).The scale that we used to identify the perceptions of self-efficacy of teachers consists of 25 items (developed by Crahay & Laduron, 2009 ). It allows us to understand two dimensions: the perception of overall effectiveness and perceived self-efficacy. Also, the questionnaire is made of four sub-scales: education; class management; control over social influences; student motivation. Therefore, the teacher can assess her skills according to these four areas. The various teachers’ beliefs that interest us were identified through a questionnaire consisting of 4 measurement scales. Each of these scales has allowed us to gather information about a particular type of belief. All scales are of the “Likert” 4 response categories (“not at all agree”, “somewhat disagree”, “somewhat agree” and “strongly agree”).

The calculated indicators show that the tested model is acceptable: Chi square (df = 73) = 157, 52 ; RMSEA = 0.076; SRMR = 0.085; CFI = 0.894; RMR = 0.041. Inter correlations between five factors are also confirmed.

5.5. Performed Analyses

Non parametric analyses (Siegel & Castellan, 1988) have been performed in order to check the influence of thetraining program on the training students’ self-efficacy feeling. The two groups have been compared by meansof the U of Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon’s test. These non-parametric tests were appropriate if we consider the small size of the retained sample.

6. Results

The statistic analysis results have shown the significant differences at the level of the the perception of overall effectiveness , perceived self-efficacy and the four PAE sub-scales.

In terms of overall effectiveness, analysis of ten items allow to understand the perception of the overall effectiveness show a significant difference (p < 0.001) in favor of students who were subjected to the training program.

For eleven items which allow to understand the perception of personal effectiveness, statistical analysis showed a highly significant difference (p < 0.001) in favor of students who have been subjected to training.

Concerning the education, the results show a significant difference (p < 0.001) in favour of training students who were submitted to the training program. These trainees show a higher self-efficacy feeling than the training students who were satisfied with just the initial training offered by the institution. As for the second PAE sub-scale concerning the class management, the results show a significant difference (p < 0.001) in favour of training students who were submitted to the training program. These latter show a higher efficacy feeling than the trainees of the sample group.

For the third and four PAE sub-scale, the results also show a significant difference (p < 0.001) in favour of trainees involved in the program. They are more efficient than the sample group.

As significant differences between the two groups of the study have been revealed concerning their perception with regards to education that they use, their classroom management, their control over social influences and student motivation capacity to involve students in learning activities, we adopt the hypothesis according to which the program has a positive impact on the self-efficacy feeling.

7. Discussion

In the context where the initial training of future PES teachers in Tunisia is still limited in the field of professional skills, in particular in the field of classroom management and despite all the measures taken in order to make it a shared responsibility in the context of pedagogical and didactic renovation, an additional training program in communication seemed to be a promising project. The objective of this research was to find out to what extent this program reached its goals, namely its contribution in raising PES training students’ perception self-efficacy pedagoguique.

The results of this study are promising concerning the efficiency of the program which seemed to have improved the perception self-efficacy pedagoguique of the trainees students who attended the training. Indeed, the training students involved in the program have shown significant positive changes as a result of this experience. One of the explanatory elements is undoubtedly the fact that in the absence of training in communication in the official programmes, the trainees of the experimental group have managed to build up and develop this crucial skill in the teaching field. From the first steps in the performance of this job it is recommended to support the development of the communication skill as it would condition the success in the teaching career by establishing self-confidence (Archambault & Chouinard, 2009) . It is particularly during the Preparation internship working life that trainees learn to teach in the early classroom experiences and it is at that moment that the set of the trainees’ development process is involved (Ria et al., 2004) . It is also during the first days of work that the trainees are confronted to problems of communication at the risk of having a feeling of in competence from the first days of work (Beckers, 2007) .

Besides, the evaluation reports of the end of the internship year career Preparation clearly mention several difficulties expressed by the trainees in communication with the students during physical education teaching sessions.

From our point of view, if the teacher’s early career is rather vulnerable towards this feeling, a measure of support through a training program should strengthen the perceptions self-efficacy pedagoguique trainees.

If the results show that the trainees of the experimental group have performed better than the sample group by a higher perception self-efficacy pedagoguique., it is because one of the strong points of the training consisted in preparing the trainees how to behave to deviant behavior from the beginning of the school year. Indeed, the training program included a first meeting with the trainees the objective of which was to make the trainees establish routines, rules and procedures in order to set up favorable teaching and learning conditions.

8. Conclusion

This research had an objective to check whether the additional training program of “Body Language and Public Speaking” could have an impact on the training students’ self-efficacy feeling at the end of an initial training in physical education.

For this purpose, a collection of data has been performed in two times, at the beginning and at the end of the practical pedagogy training, through a questionnaire including a scale of measurement of the self-efficacy feeling, the perceptions of self-efficacy of teachers (PAE) cited by Crahay & Laduron (2009) .

Even though it can be improved, the training program has allowed to mitigate the lack of training with regards to communication in the initial training for the teaching of physical education and sports. The results of this study have shown that the trainees who took part in the program are better than those of the sample group by displaying a stronger self-efficacy feeling. By doing this, they have probably felt success in the tests during the training, motivating them to preserve this acquired experience.

The results of this study are interesting since they meet the main functions of an efficient communication that is to speak in a language quality in the exercise of their duties which is favorable to learning.

On the other hand, we emphasize the fact that, within the framework of this study, one of the main hindrances is consisted in the limited number of participants required by the selection of a sample. It is then rather hard to generalize the results unless we resume the program on the basis of a larger number of trainees. Besides, the means to achieve this project were not always at hand.

Despite these limitations, the project offers promising prospects concerning the implementation of the communication skill and could make up an interesting contribution for the advancement of knowledge in the particular context of thetraining of future Tunisian teachers.

Finally, we suggest that the university officials look for better devices which would allow to consolidate the professional skills of future PES teachers, mainly communication, and draw their attention to the modalities which promote the self-efficacy feeling. For the initial training, we have to insist on the importance of the role played by communication. Therefore, we highly recommend “Body Language and Public Speaking” be integrated in a training module of communication in official programs.

Cite this paper

Aymen Hawani,Hsan Melki,Maher Mrayeh,Mohamed Sami Bouzid,Nizar Souissi,Moez Mrabet, (2016) Impact of “Body Language and Public Speaking” Training on Physical Education Trainees’ Perceptions Self-Efficacy Pedagoguique. Creative Education,07,1861-1868. doi: 10.4236/ce.2016.714188

References

Appendix

Echelle de mesure des perceptions de l’auto-efficacite des enseignants (PAE) (Crahay & Laduron (2009))