Postgraduate students’ perceptions of practice mentor competency in physical education: development and preliminary validation of a questionnaire
Abstract
Practice mentors play an important role in connecting university-based learning with field-based pedagogical, coaching, and professional practice in physical education postgraduate training. However, existing mentor competency frameworks are often developed for general academic supervision or teacher education and may not fully capture the practice-oriented responsibilities of mentors in physical education contexts. This study aimed to develop and preliminarily validate a student-reported questionnaire for assessing postgraduate students' perceptions of practice mentor competency in physical education. Following literature review, policy analysis, expert consultation, and student feedback, an initial 20-item questionnaire was developed. A pilot survey was conducted with 79 postgraduate students majoring in physical education or sport-related programs for item analysis and exploratory factor analysis. A formal survey was then conducted with 307 postgraduate students for confirmatory factor analysis, reliability testing, and correlation-based validity analysis. Exploratory factor analysis suggested a preliminary four-factor, 17-item structure, comprising Professional Competence, Personal Qualities, Teaching and Practice Management Capability, and Professional Ethics. The four factors explained 67.788% of the total variance. Reliability analysis showed acceptable internal consistency, with Cronbach' s alpha coefficients ranging from 0.843 to 0.864 for the four dimensions and 0.904 for the total scale. Split-half reliability coefficients ranged from 0.822 to 0.855 for the four dimensions and reached 0.887 for the total scale. Confirmatory factor analysis in the formal sample indicated good model fit: χ ² = 135.613, df = 113, χ ²/df = 1.200, RMSEA = 0.026, SRMR = 0.0315, CFI = 0.991, TLI = 0.989, and IFI = 0.991. These findings provide preliminary psychometric evidence for a student-reported instrument measuring perceived practice mentor competency in physical education. Further validation using larger, cross-regional, multi-source, and longitudinal samples is needed before the questionnaire can be used for high-stakes mentor evaluation.