Search

A significant goal of teacher education is to support the development of reflective practitioners. This intention, however, is not easily achieved when after-the-fact recall and reporting are key features of pre-service teacher learning rather than critique and contemplation. This research reports on a small-scale pilot study evaluating a novel approach to help pre-service teachers develop reflective skills in order to both understand and address the requirements of the profession. The approach involved a set of Conversation Cards with a series of question-based prompts directly linked to the APSTs and designed to enhance reflective conversations. Focus group interview discussions unveiled the surprising ways in which the pre-service teachers used the question prompts, not only as tools for reflection but for planning lessons and preparing for professional discussions with mentors. This research provides insight into a creative and meaningful approach for integrating reflection, professional standards and classroom practice through professional experience.

This article explores how the Museum, Art and Wellbeing project brought primary school children and seniors from the same local community together to engage in explorative activities designed to reveal individual and mutual assets for wellbeing. The Museum, Art and Wellbeing project undertook a participatory arts-based approach to investigate how the assets of a large public institution such as Museums Victoria, Australia could reach out and engage different community groups. The seniors came from a local University of the Third Age (U3A) which offers a wide range of classes but does not usually engage with primary schools. Children at the primary school engage in art learning and separate wellbeing learning but these age-stage sessions, as designated to incremental year levels, had not previously included direct involvement of seniors in learning activities. For both groups, the connection to Victoria's state museums is marked by previous occasional one-off visits. Museum resources have not been considered as ongoing assets for wellbeing that link to the local community in the way that this project does. The university's role in brokering such connections by deploying often ignored human/institutional assets to support health and strengthen community has been explored in papers by fellow researchers, Justen O'Connor and Laura Alfrey. Our enquiry is extended in this article by focusing on how art education, specifically art-making, and intergenerational learning can strengthen community and enhance wellbeing across school and community-based educational contexts and museums.

Artefacts are an important part of policy work, and a means of representation, translation, re-negotiation, and resistance of policy. While research has established their integral role in policy enactment, little research has examined the production and/or dissemination of artefacts by teacher educators. This paper reports and analyses the production and re-production of a specific set of artefacts, arising from the policy work of four teacher educators seeking to influence the interpretation and enactment of the Australian Curriculum in Health and Physical Education (AC HPE). Analysis and discussion pursue: the rationale for producing a set of artefacts focusing on a particular feature of the AC HPE; the processes of artefact production; actions designed to activate and re-present the artefacts; and emerging evidence of uptake and impact. The relationship of artefacts to policy work is shown to be strategically significant for teacher educators, teachers and others invested in new curriculum developments, and is characterised as both fluid and generative. We argue that artefacts have important performative policy potential and play a key role in supporting and shaping curriculum policy enactment.

Internationally, patterns of participation in sport are changing, with so-called 'informal' participation displacing club-based and other formally structured involvement in sport. This paper reports research that is investigating changing forms of participation from an educational perspective. It directs attention to what physical education can learn from informal sport and how physical education can align pedagogically with contemporary participation trends, to help grow and sustain young people's engagement in sport beyond schools. The paper presents findings from two sequential elements of an ongoing research project. The first is a systematic review of literature pertaining to informal participation that examined the skills, knowledge and understanding central to participation that occurs outside of traditional sport structures. Findings from this review highlight that social skills, cultural understandings, and knowledge relating to environment, alongside movement skills, are important in enabling participants to become engaged in, and maintain their involvement in, informal participation. The second element of the research involved documentary analysis to examine the alignment of contemporary curricula, and specifically, the Australian Curriculum Health and Physical Education (AC HPE), with the learning identified as important for informal participation. Findings illustrate clear opportunities for the AC HPE to bring to the fore knowledge, skills and understandings that may extend young people's engagement with informal participation through their lives. The discussion addresses key issues for policy makers, teachers and teacher educators to consider in the light of this research, if they are to leverage the opportunities for teaching and learning that informal sport presents.

This study reflects that teacher education in Health and Physical Education (HPE) has long grappled with the challenge of how to disrupt pre-service teachers' (PSTs) established attitudes about HPE that may limit their capacity to positively engage with a diverse student population. This paper describes the development, validation and interpretation of the Stereotypical Attitudes in Health and Physical Education scale (SAHPE) for use in teacher education institutions. The scale was developed as a means of exploring the extent to which PSTs perpetuate or reject discriminatory attitudes and stereotypes that have been identified as having some historical and cultural acceptance in Health and Physical Education. It was designed as a tool to generate data that can be used by teacher educators with PSTs to better understand and problematise stereotypical attitudes that ultimately impact diversity and inclusion in HPE classrooms. This paper details the design process and pilot research that enabled validation of the scale for use by Australian teacher educators. For the purposes of validation, the SAHPE scale was administered to 109 pre-service teachers at one Australian university. Rasch modelling and confirmatory factor analysis using AMOS version 20.0 was employed to determine the measurement properties of the instrument and the construct validity of factors. Results from the study showed that a 17-item factor structure of the SAHPE is a valid and reliable predictor of a construct related to stereotypical attitudes. The discussion addresses the future application of the SAHPE as an instrument for teacher educators to use in efforts to enhance inclusion in HPE.

Background: Contemporary scholarship calls for the Health and Physical Education (HPE) profession to pay attention to the practical translation of the critical agenda. Whilst invitations to criticality have featured in HPE scholarship for decades, there have been limited attempts to explore how the critical agenda translates into practice in HPE. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to illuminate the nuance and liminality that characterises the inherently messy and complex process of curriculum transformation and enactment. Methods: We draw on teachers' perspectives, researcher observations, field notes and planning documents from an ongoing and longitudinal exemplifying case-study. The case-study focuses on one Australian Secondary School within the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. The HPE department is relatively large (n = 20), with six being involved in the first three phases of the ongoing research (planning, pilot of curriculum enactment, and roll-out of curriculum enactment). Findings: The HPE teachers we worked with are becoming more critical practitioners. Three practices which they felt were sustained and had the most impact were: (i) questioning and critical dialogue as a focus in every lesson; (ii) student choice related to assessment; (iii) opportunity for critical reflection and creative thought and movement. The process of transformation could begin because the teachers had a range of resources available to them over time (e.g. clear vision, structural support, and strong leadership). Secondary data from the teachers suggest that student participation has increased from 75% to 100% since the new curriculum was introduced. Discussion: This paper offers a unique insight into the nuances of the liminal space between traditional and transformed ways of seeing and doing HPE. The multi-directional process of transformation was characterised by teachers crossing a threshold into a liminal space where they oscillated between traditional and more critical approaches, at times engaging in mimicry and 'getting stuck'. Transformation will never be linear, it takes time, and requires sustained resources. That said, our findings suggest that curriculum transformation as part of a broader critical agenda, can transform teachers' philosophies and practices, as well as increase student participation in HPE. Conclusion: Any attempt to transform curriculum, pedagogy and assessment will be characterised by periods of time where teachers experience tension as their philosophies on HPE are disturbed and potentially shifted, and thus liminality should be both expected and embraced.

This paper responds to calls for an exploration into pedagogies of meaning within physical education. Developing meaningful educational experiences in physical education for lifelong movement involves supporting students to explore their personal experiences in movement and to use these to derive a greater understanding of themselves and the world in which they live. Following a brief overview of the role of meaning-making in physical education, a case study is offered as a practical example for how reflection can be utilised to explore movement as meaningful. The case study presents a series of steps that provide detail about a meaning-making process undertaken during a physical education class. Data suggest that setting aside time for reflection and the generation of rich movement narratives aligned to a 'first rush of movement', can shed light on what students find meaningful 'in' movement in ways that link physical education to experiences across varying social and environmental contexts. Through giving priority to bodily understandings of movement as felt, sensory experience, participants (n = 44) were able to express meaning across a wide range of movement contexts. I contend that the exploration of student meaning in physical education is engaging, informative, and serves to extend possibilities for what curriculum is seen as legitimate in physical education by/for whom. The paper sheds light on the use of embodied meaning-making stories as a potential springboard for further exploration and activity in physical education.

Healthism is both an ideological and a regulative discourse that manifests as a tendency to conceive health as a product of individual choice. Healthism represents a collection of taken-for-granted assumptions, positioned at the intersection of morality, blame and health, that can lead to a privileging of 'healthy' and 'productive' individuals. It is argued that healthism is a key issue for physical educators and a significant focus for research. The validation of a scale -- the Attitude Towards Healthism Scale (ATHS) -- that seeks to quantify pre-service physical education teachers' attitudes towards healthism is described. Participants were 201 pre-service teachers undertaking a Bachelor of Education degree in Australia. The factor structure of the initial 17-item scale was determined using an exploratory factor analysis followed by Rasch modelling and, lastly, confirmatory factor analysis. Initial exploratory factor analysis supported a unidimensional measure of healthism. Further Rasch modelling suggested that a refined 15-item ATHS scale functioned more effectively as two sub-scales that combined to provide a valid and reliable method of measuring the ideology of healthism. It is suggested that the ATHS will enable teacher educators and PSTs to discuss healthism with reference to attitudinal data, and examine how views change over time.

Inclusion remains a key political agenda for education internationally and is a matter that teachers across subject communities and phases of education are challenged to respond to. In physical education specifically, research continues to highlight that current practice often reaffirms rather than challenges established inequities. This paper critically explores the understandings of inclusion that contribute to this situation and addresses the challenge of advancing inclusion in physical education from conceptual and pedagogical viewpoints. DeLuca's [(2013). "Toward an Interdisciplinary Framework for Educational Inclusivity." "Canadian Journal of Education" 36 (1): 305-348] conceptualisation of normative, integrative, dialogical and transgressive approaches to inclusion is employed as a basis for critical analysis of current practice and for thinking afresh about inclusive practice in physical education in relation to curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. Analysis informs the presentation of a set of principles that are designed to assist teachers and teacher educators to transform inclusive practice in physical education and in doing so, realise visions for physical education that are articulated in international policy guidelines and contemporary curriculum developments.

How teacher educators respond as policy actors from inside spaces where multiple policies and discourses collide provides insights into the ways in which policy plays out in educational contexts. By engaging and working within the uncertain space of our own contextual 'policy storm' we provide a narrative of enactment highlighting the roles and actions of policy actors simultaneously constrained and inspired by policy. We use the policy actor framework [Ball, S.J., Maguire, M., Braun, A., & Hoskins, K. (2011a). "Policy actors: Doing policy work in schools," "Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education," 32(4), 625-639] to unpack policy meaning-making within university and faculty climates, teacher education, and curriculum reform in Health and Physical Education (HPE) in Australia. This paper has three tasks. Firstly, we set-up the conditions of uncertainty and possibility as a 'policy storm' and place where four disparate policies converged. Secondly, we provide an empirical and theoretical account of policy interpretation and enactment from the actors perspective. Finally, we test the policy actor framework to determine if it adequately describes our insider policy work. In moving beyond reductionist policy narratives we provide policy possibilities that illustrate enactment, are innovative, and explore the productive potential inside policy reform.

Background: Critical inquiry approaches have been presented as one way of enhancing relevance in school-based education, and there have been calls from academia for its systematic use within health and physical education (HPE). Purpose: This research explored how three Secondary HPE teachers coconstructed and enacted a unit of work (Take Action) that was underpinned by critical inquiry approaches. Drawing on the work of Stephen Ball we focus here on the different ways in which the three teachers interpreted, translated and enacted "Take Action", and negotiated a shift away from the performative pedagogies of traditional HPE. Take Action is a co-constructed, inquiry-based unit of work that sought to provide an alternative to traditional and often exclusive HPE. Data collection and analysis: A participatory action research approach was undertaken. Data were uncovered from qualitative interviews, classroom observations and field notes before, during and after the enactment of Take Action. Data were analysed using the qualitative data analysis software "Dedoose" which facilitated coding. Data were analysed inductively across all sources utilising a constant comparative method. Analyses consisted of three phases of coding: open, axial and selective. Open coding involved the categorisation of data into themes and axial coding considered connections across the themes. Selective coding involved a refining and development of the previously identified themes, and then bringing the themes/codes together to tell a story about the teachers and their perspectives on the enactment of Take Action. Findings: Three teachers co-constructed, translated and enacted Take Action, and whilst some challenges were universal, the process and outcomes unfolded quite differently for each. The two contextual factors that emerged as most influential were: (i) the structural support available for teachers and learners and (ii) the time available for the unit to be enacted, and for the teachers' philosophies to be challenged and transformed. Take Action was one way of supporting teachers in responding to calls from policy-makers for more critical inquiry in HPE. Interpreting, translating and enacting Take Action challenged how teachers viewed their role in the learning process, the nature of HPE, and the breadth of their pedagogical repertoire. Conclusions: The findings confirm that curriculum and policy are volatile and rarely mobilised as the creator/s intended. They highlight that the "fluidity" of curriculum mobilisation persists, irrespective of whether the teachers have mental ownership over the process and/or are involved in its co-creation. The complexity that accompanies a shift towards "alternative" ways of understanding and teaching HPE, however, means that calls from academia and policy-makers are unlikely to be fruitful unless: (i) there is an appreciation for each teacher's philosophies; (ii) each school culture is fully understood; (iii) the inevitable challenges are viewed as spaces to learn, reflect and move forward; and (iv) support comes in many forms depending on the teacher and the school. The findings confirm that whilst policy creates a particular context, it is the ideologies and histories that permeate teachers' philosophies and school context that will ultimately dictate the policy process. This is not a problem to be solved but a process which we can learn in, through and about.

Background: Greater understandings about how progressive pedagogies are interpreted and practiced within schools will be required if international calls to enhance relevance and meaning in Health and Physical Education (HPE) are to be realised. Little is understood about how inquiry-based units of work connected to real-life issues are enacted, engaged with, and generate deeper knowledge within a HPE context. Purpose: This study explores learner outcomes and perceptions of engagement with an inquiry-based unit of work, "Take Action," that aimed to provide young people with an opportunity to critically reflect on movement, investigate an issue important to them, and enhance their capacity to enact positive change for themselves and others. Participants and setting: Forty-four students and three teachers from two secondary school settings participated in the research. Both schools were located in relatively low socio-economic status areas in southern metropolitan Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Data collection and analysis: An exploratory and evaluative study design that employed naturalistic inquiry, using qualitative semi-structured interview data, observational data, and analysis of learner-produced artefacts were used. Analysis drew upon authentic learning frames to explore elements of knowledge construction through disciplined inquiry and real-life application. Findings: "Take Action" provided a unique experience of HPE for the students and teachers who engaged with it. It was a collaborative, learner-centred inquiry-based experience that most learners found to be engaging and authentic. Both teachers and learners lacked the foundational knowledge of the discipline and a sound understanding of a critical-inquiry process that would have allowed them to deconstruct and reconstruct new ideas in deep interconnected ways. Conclusions: More support for teachers and students is needed to legitimate these types of approaches within broader curriculum contexts to support student learning. Specifically, foundational understandings of: socially critical approaches to critical inquiry that serve to enhance knowledge relating to learner-identified topics; learning intentions and authentic assessment and how these might align with inquiry-based learning; forming connections with external experts to support learners early in an inquiry process; and how to extend explorations and elaborations within the constraints of a congested and contested curriculum.

The health and physical education (HPE) profession needs to find alternatives to its individualistic and performative focus if it is to remain relevant and meaningful for all learners. This paper presents a way of framing HPE that helps to shift the focus from the individual as autonomous decision-maker, and goes beyond sport and fitness testing as the main contexts for learning. To do this we present the socio-ecological action research (SEAR) frame for unit development that was co-created and enacted over a six-month period involving dialogue between teachers, students, parents, researchers and community. This paper presents findings from semi-structured interviews, student artefacts and field notes collected as one component of a broader three-phase study which spanned three years. The data describe how generalist primary teachers (n = 4) from a small Victorian community and their students (aged 8-10 years) tackled a unit of work that positioned centrally the everyday physical experiences of active school travel (AST). Teachers supported students in exploring barriers to their AST, and developing strategies that would counteract some of the negative perceptions that had limited their AST in the past. The findings suggest that the unit of work evolved from an exploration of AST into a much broader exploration of the whole community. This paper does not provide evidence for an alternative way to view HPE, rather it represents an embryonic exploration of how a SEAR frame might support teachers in applying inquiry-based pedagogies that extend beyond the individual as autonomous decision-maker, and promote opportunities for exploration and understanding of environmental, social and personal factors that influence our health and everyday physically active lives. Despite students being positioned as central actors within the SEAR frame, obtaining genuine student voice throughout the process proved challenging.

This project describes the development of a resource designed to facilitate the exploration of factors influencing physical activity within school settings across multiple levels. Using a socio-ecological framework, the study draws upon factors across three domains that potentially impact physical activity levels within school settings: The physical environment; school ethos and policy; and the wider community environment. Following literature review, expert review and preliminary pilot testing, a 58 item, Active PASS resource was developed to explore multi-level influences on student physical activity within school settings. The resource was identified as inviting, easy to use and valuable for schools as a review and planning tool. Further refinement based upon large sample reliability testing is required to transform the resource into a more robust and reliable scale for research purposes. (Contains 2 tables.)

Movement-seeking behaviours should be fostered in young children to maximise their potential to adopt and maintain a physically active lifestyle. This study examined the constraints and facilitators to meaningful movement for children in family day care. The views of key stakeholders (caregivers, parents, and coordination unit staff) were examined via focus group interviews and questionnaires. There was general agreement among stakeholders that physical activity is an important part of young children's lives and should be an essential component of family day care. However, there was concern about the variability in provision of opportunities for physical activity and that the variability reflected individual caregivers' predilection. Despite this, there was little support for structured or programmed physical activity. The major barriers to physical activity described by stakeholders reflected a confluence of environmental and social factors. Major facilitating factors mentioned were training and resources for caregivers. (Contains 2 tables.)