A Comparison of Selected Supervisory Skills of Content Specialist and Non-content Specialist University Supervisors

The purpose of this study was to describe and contrast selected approaches to the supervision of student teachers between content specialist and non-content specialist supervisors. Content specialist supervisors were trained university supervisors with a background in physical education. Non-content specialist supervisors were trained university supervisors without a background in physical education. Both groups of supervisors assessed a pre-recorded stimulus tape of an authentic physical education student teaching lesson. The supervisors were asked to observe the lesson, complete a critique of the lesson, and engage in semi-structured interviews to discuss supervisory behaviors, strategies, and conferencing techniques. Results suggested that both groups displayed similar approaches to preparing for, documenting, and constructing critiques of a student teaching observation. However, the content specialist supervisors requested significantly more contextual information about the student teacher and lesson. Also, the content specialists viewed the lesson in real time, while non-content specialists took on average twenty-five percent longer to view the lesson. Furthermore, the two groups described different methods for implementing conferencing strategies. The results of this study establish the existence of differences between content specialist and non-content specialist supervisors. The next step is to examine the extent to which there is a difference in impact of these supervisory behaviors on student teacher performance and, ultimately on student learning