Content Acquisition Podcasts vs Open-Access Podcast: Improving Preservice Physical Educators’ Ability to Teach Students With Visual Impairments

Abstract

Children with visual impairments (VI) have numerous and well-documented health disparities that negatively impact their quality of life. Although physical education should serve as an avenue to reduce these disparities, physical educators often report being unprepared to work with children with VI. Physical education undergraduate programs also struggle to adequately address issues related to teaching children with disabilities. Hence, it is imperative that educational tools are identified that can more efficiently imbue the knowledge and skills related teaching children with VI in a physical education setting. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of two types of educational podcasts (i.e., content acquisition podcasts and open-access podcasts) on preservice physical educators' knowledge and self-efficacy around teaching students with VI. The CAPs group had significantly higher knowledge gains compared to the control group but was non-significantly higher than the open-access group. The CAPs group significantly improved self-efficacy compared with the open-access and control groups. Implications for future research and suggestions for the use of educational podcasts within college and university settings are discussed.