A mountain too high to climb? An exploratory study of perceived barriers to mobilisation of research literature into physical education teacher education experienced by a group of Danish PE teacher educators

Abstract

International research emphasises that Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) has a key role to play in initiating and processing changes in Physical Education (PE). However, several researchers also find that it is a significant challenge for PETE to contest ideological approaches regarding PE practices among PE student teachers. Stronger relationships between research and educational practice and more deliberate mobilisation of research into teacher education may help address such educational issues. The main agents in that regard are teacher educators who are supposed to have the competencies to mobilise research literature into PETE. However, in Denmark, only 10% of Danish teacher educators hold a research-based PhD. The main aim of this article is to make the first steps towards more knowledge in this area by presenting an exploratory study of perceived barriers to mobilising research literature into PETE as experienced by a group of Danish PE teacher educators. The paper is based on empirical data generated through a course developed to qualify PE teacher educators' competencies in the use of research literature: papers, discussion-notes and interviews. Four main categories were generated: (1) 'We're competing on time', (2) 'A separate approach', (3) 'It has to add value' and (4) 'Hard to make it that academic'. The discussion addresses some general focus points for supporting the application of research in teacher education and suggest directions for future research.

Being an early-career teacher–researcher in physical education: a narrative inquiry

“…However, the commonalities between this story and that of the interview scenario above suggested to me that research was again a concept or practice estranged from the types of CLPL that PE teachers pursue. The hyperbolic term 'big fancy words' used by my colleague to me reflected how PETE staff were viewed by department colleagues, suggesting research and theoretical work informing practice was unnecessarily complicated and deliberately inaccessible (Svendsen, 2020). Inwardly, while proposed as innocent humour, it disheartened me to believe that my colleagues' views, which I valued, were somewhat aligned with senior colleagues in the school.…”

Correlation relation between professional qualifications of physical education teachers and students’ attitudes towards Physical Education classes

“…They are either on teachers' selfperceptions of their qualifications as in the study conducted by Elliot, Atencio, Campbell and Jess [24] and on professionalism as in Dowling's study [25]. Some other studies, on the other hand, evaluate the PE teacher education programmes [26] and deal with research based PE teacher education [27].…”