Dear colleagues

on the topic

Physical education teacher training - university didactics in the mirror of research

We would like to cordially invite you to the 47th annual conference of the Sport Pedagogy Commission of the German Society for Educational Science from 14 to 16 November 2024 at the University of Oldenburg.

The Giessen conference of the DGfE Sport Pedagogy Commission in 2013, entitled "Sport teacher training - revisited", already focussed on sport teacher training as a genuine field of sport didactics. While this field of activity was initially dealt with by individual teachers primarily in the context of individual teaching practice, in recent years there has been a trend towards empirical research into the field of sport didactics in university didactics, which is reflected in the modelling of competences (Baumgartner, 2013; Meister et al, 2024), the development of competency tests (Langer et al., 2022), the design of university didactic teaching formats (Langer & Erhorn, 2023) and university didactic evaluation research (Baumgartner, 2018; Heemsoth et al., 2022; Erhorn et al., 2023). At the same time, higher education didactics support systems and certificate programmes have been established at universities, which can also be interpreted as an expression of the professionalisation of the field of higher education didactics. This gives us the opportunity to reflect on the developments described and the state of research at the planned conference of the DGfE Commission on Sport Education 2024 and to identify possible perspectives for further research. This also seems necessary because it can be assumed that methodology and didactics also have a constitutive object reference in the university context and must therefore be specified in relation to the domain.

We have succeeded in attracting renowned speakers for the keynote speeches. Firstly, Prof. Dr Horst Biedermann (Rector of the St. Gallen University of Teacher Education) will provide an insight into the central professional learning cores of prospective teachers and discuss challenges and opportunities for implementation in teacher training. Prof. Dr Roland Messmer (Professor of Sport and Sport Didactics in Adolescence/ FHNW) will then take a critical look at questions of sports teacher training and its didactics. Finally, Prof. Dr Claudia Steinberg (Professor of Dance and Movement Culture/ DSHS Cologne) will present innovative approaches in the didactics and methodology of movement fields using the example of the movement field "Design, Dance, Performance".

In addition, we look forward to further contributions from the field of sports teacher training, which, for example, address the didactic formats of lectures, seminars, preparation, support and follow-up of school internships as well as the didactics and methodology of the fields of movement that are particularly relevant in sports science studies. The following questions and problem areas could be focussed on:

• Which competences and competence facets should be targeted in the courses?
• How can these competences and competence facets be assessed and measured?
• Which higher education didactic methods can be used to successfully develop these competences and competence facets with the students?
• What pedagogical processes take place in the context of the courses?

The conference will take place in the beautiful ambience of the ballroom of Oldenburg Castle and is funded by zukunft.niedersachsen.

The conference hotels (altera Hotel, Hermes Hotel and B & B Oldenburg) and the venues for the evening events (e.g. Glut & Wasser) are located in the immediate vicinity of the conference venue and can easily be reached on foot within 10 minutes. This will therefore be a conference of short distances.

If you have any questions, please send an email to:

We look forward to welcoming you to Oldenburg!

Jan Erhorn, André Meister & Katharina Pöppel