Rate My Professor Teri Hepler

Teri Hepler is a Professor in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, where she serves as the Exercise Science Program Director and was Associate Chair through 2024. Using she/her/hers pronouns, she joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor by 2011 and received promotion to Professor with tenure from the University of Wisconsin System Regents in 2022. Hepler engages in university service through participation in Undergraduate Curriculum Committee meetings, provision of faculty resources for Pre-Health advising, and recognition as a friendly face at the Pride Center. Her department specialty areas include general education.

Hepler earned her PhD in sport and exercise psychology from Michigan State University in 2008 and her bachelor's degree from Ripon College in 2000, where she excelled as a three-time All-Conference softball player, setting school records for career triples, total bases, and stolen bases with a .371 batting average, while also contributing to the basketball team with averages of 8.1 points and 4.6 rebounds per game. Her research specializations encompass sport psychology and human motor behavior, particularly self-efficacy, decision-making, coaching efficacy, and adapted sport. Key publications include "Can self-efficacy pave the way for successful decision-making in sport?" in the Journal of Sport Psychology in Action (2016), "Coaching Efficacy and Volunteer Youth Sport Coaches" in The Sport Psychologist, "Relationship between decision-making self-efficacy, task self-efficacy, and the performance of a sport skill," and a chapter on "Self, relational, and collective efficacy in athletes." She presented "Parent Goals for School-Sponsored Adapted Sport for Students with Disabilities" at the Physical Educators National Convention (2016) and has co-authored peer-reviewed abstracts on topics like adapted physical education transitions and motivational behaviors in exercise adherence. Hepler's contributions extend to serving on graduate thesis committees for research on coaches' perceptions of adapted sport benefits.