Prioritising meaningful physical education experiences: linking teachers’ participation in a contemporary professional development initiative with student experiences and outcomes

Background Contemporary forms of professional development (CPD) in physical education are collaborative and based in learning communities, situated in teachers’ specific contexts, and based on teachers’ and students’ needs (Parker and Patton 2016. “What Research Tells Us about Effective Continuing Professional Development for Physical Education Teachers.” In The Routledge Handbook of Physical Education Pedagogies, edited by Catherine D. Ennis, 447–460. Abingdon, UK: Routledge). Despite the purported value of these approaches for physical education, most research considers only teachers’ perspectives, with few showing evidence of student outcomes that result from teachers’ engagement with CPD initiatives. The purpose of this research is to examine how teachers’ participation in a longitudinal CPD initiative supported their enactment of Meaningful PE in ways that students could identify as contributing to the quality of their physical education experiences.Methods The research draws from two consecutive CPD projects (Phase 1: 2018-2022, Phase 2: 2022-2027) that were designed based on principles of effective CPD and focused on supporting teachers to learn about and enact Meaningful PE in schools. At the time of writing, Michaela and Abby were involved in the two CPD projects for six and five years respectively, and Ranya was involved in Phase 2 for two years. For the purposes of this specific research, data from teachers consisted of one semi-structured individual interview, classroom observations, and classroom artefacts, while focus group interviews were conducted with eight groups of students (n = 30) who were taught by Michaela, Abby, and Ranya. Data were analysed deductively, using principles from Meaningful PE to guide the generation of themes from participants’ responses.Results Following their engagement in the CPD, teachers described how they used ideas related to Meaningful PE in their teaching. Specifically, teachers referred to how they used features of meaningful experiences to develop a shared language with students, and how they enacted democratic and reflective pedagogies. Students gave specific descriptions of the ways their teacher taught that aligned with Meaningful PE and positively influenced their experiences in physical education. Students used a shared language of the features of meaningful experiences and shared examples of their teacher’s use of democratic and reflective pedagogies.Impact statement The consistency between teachers’ learning experiences from the CPD initiative, evidence of teachers’ practice and their enactment of Meaningful PE, and descriptions of students’ experiences enables an inference to be made regarding the role of a CPD initiative focused on Meaningful PE and its influence on students’ experiences in physical education. The outcomes of this research are significant because they provide much needed evidence that connects teachers’ learning in CPD with student outcomes.

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