Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions and Experiences Implementing CATCH My Breath

ABSTRACT Background Vaping among American secondary students is increasing. School-based health education is well positioned to deliver messaging about the dangers of vaping and to develop refusal skills. CATCH My Breath (CMB) is an evidence-based vaping prevention curriculum that provides resources to create and sustain healthy behaviors. Given inherent challenges during the induction stage of career socialization, pre-service and beginning health and physical educators may experience heightened teaching efficacy by delivering prepackaged curriculum. Purpose Investigate health and physical education pre-service teachers’ perceptions of and experiences with implementing the CMB curriculum. Method Basic qualitative research design was utilized to determine perceptions of 12 pre-service teachers from two teacher education programs in the eastern United States. Pre-service teachers completed semi-structured focus group interviews. Results Themes emerged from a detailed analysis: (a) mastery experiences, (b) support, (c) resources, (d) health education impact, (e) collaborate and lead, and (f) challenges. Discussion By implementing the curriculum, participants gained teaching efficacy and reported likelihood for future selection of prepackaged units. Translation to Health Education Practice: Implementing evidence-based prepackaged curricula into PETE/HETE programs aligned with teacher education standards supports collaboration and reflection within the student teaching triad which may increase teaching efficacy of pre-service teachers.