A Critical Examination of the Curriculum of Physical Education Teacher Education Doctoral Programs

Concerns have been raised in the Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) doctoral education literature regarding: (a) the narrowness of research preparation, (b) the emphasis on disciplinary silos, (c) the lack of competitiveness and innovation within and beyond academia, and (d) the role of graduate assistants. These concerns mirror those in the professoriate at large regarding doctoral education. There is, however, little research that has examined these issues in our field. In this paper we report on the content studied in the core curriculum of doctoral programs, admission requirements, number of full and part time students, number of faculty serving these students, funding supporting students, and type and scope of research classes. Data were collected from websites as well as other public domain sources and open-ended interviews with faculty members in each program. We discuss the findings and implications for PETE.