Adaptive self-regulation of sports students: Do prospective physical education teachers differ from sports students with different career goals?

In occupational research focusing on the teaching profession, adaptive self-regulation is considered to be an important individual resource for teachers to cope with occupational stress. This fact leads to the question which regulation profiles prospective physical education (PE) teachers have with regard to mastering the requirements and what implications this has for university courses for prospective teachers. It is not only of interest whether prospective PE teachers have more favorable or rather unfavorable behavioral patterns, but also whether they have specific characteristics compared to students pursuing other sports degrees. The results of a survey of 851 students majoring in PE indicate that they can be assigned to four different profiles of self-regulation. Significant differences can be found with regard to the distribution in different patterns between students who are studying to become PE teachers and other sports science program students. For example, prospective PE teachers are more likely to exhibit a pattern of protection and less often a risky style of regulation. Looking at the pattern distribution in the subgroup of prospective PE teachers, minor differences can be detected depending on gender but not for the additional subject.