program are involved in. Once admitted into a graduate program, these students begin the role of paid teaching assistants in a host of basic undergraduate skill programs (Miller, Dowell, &; Pender, 1989). When teaching tasks are assigned to a new GTA however, minimal attention is typically paid to ensuring effective matches between the basic skill classes GTAs are responsible to teach and the various teaching competencies and subject matter familiarities the GTAs bring to the position (Poole, 1991). For many first year GTAs, this new role as a teaching assistant within a physical education program in higher education is their first exposure to autonomous teaching in an undergraduate academic setting. This first year of teaching for many GTAs has been informally referred to as a survival stage in the development of their undergraduate teaching skills. All too often it is a stage in which GTAs are left to acquire their teaching skills by trial and error (Darling &; Dewey, 1990