Our purpose was to explore the role of photocue reflection in the professional learning of physical education teacher educators. Five physical education teacher educators participated in a six-month professional learning experience focused on communication. Individual diaries including both photos and writing prompts, photocue reflective diaries,…

Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs (CSPAP) coordinate physical activity opportunities for school-age children through physical education, programs offered before/after school and during the school day, and those facilitated through staff involvement and community engagement. An active school is considered to implement quality physical…

Purpose: This study was situated within a longitudinal study of 5 teachers examining the realities of teaching physical education by determining the impact of individual dispositions and contextual factors on the career trajectories of postprimary physical education teachers in Ireland (Iannucci & MacPhail, 2017). One of these participants,…

Background: A plethora of new terms and digital pedagogies have been making recent headlines in higher education with the promise, or threat, that digital technology will revolutionise the way in which universities operate. Blended learning is part of this digital revolution and institutions of higher education worldwide are increasingly adopting…

The aim of this paper was to gain an understanding of the views of a group of physical education teacher educators on the purpose(s) of school physical education and whether, how and why these views have changed over time. Semi-structured individual interviews were carried out with thirteen physical education teacher educators; a fourteenth…

A child's early school years provide a crucial platform for them to develop fundamental movement skills (FMS), yet it has been acknowledged that there is a shortage of suitable FMS assessment tools for teachers to use within schools. To begin to address this shortfall, the purpose of this study was to elicit expert recommendations for the design…

This paper explored physical education (PE) teachers' perspectives of giving voice to students to understand how the practice is enacted in lessons at a time of curricular reform. A qualitative comparative case study followed three teachers in a triad of Irish secondary schools, eliciting their experiences of giving voice to students using focus…

Children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are identified as a marginalised group whose educational rights are considerably less fulfilled than their peers. This can be more conspicuous in Physical Education (PE) classes, where they often experience a narrower sphere of participatory options compared to their…

This study develops an understanding of the relationships among personal accomplishment, resilience, and teaching multiple school subjects role conflict (TMSS-RC) among Irish post-primary, multi-subject teachers. A theoretically informed conceptual framework was developed to explain the relationships among personal accomplishment, resilience, and…

Background: Concerns that current forms of physical education teacher education (PETE) are not adequately providing teachers with the tools necessary for working with the realities and challenges of teaching physical education in contemporary schools has led some scholars to advocate for an approach that prioritises meaningfulness in physical…

Due to the overemphasis of traditional sports at the expense of other movement domains in physical education (PE) programmes, there is a need to consider what factors might enable or limit PE teachers' incorporation of some of these other domains that can support student learning. The focus of this article is on one such marginalized domain --…

Increasing physical activity opportunities in schools has emerged as a global priority among school-aged youth. As a result, many countries have designed and implemented whole-of-school physical activity initiatives that seek to increase physical activity opportunities that are available to school-aged children before, during, and after school.…

Mary O'Sullivan writes that she spent part of her sabbatical leave interviewing teacher educators from nine countries across three continents exploring teacher education contexts both nationally and locally, and the nature of the 'teacher educators' work in these contexts. Three issues struck her: (1) The intensification of regulation and policy…

In this research we examined the ways we accessed and responded to students' engagement with a set of pedagogical principles of teacher education focused on meaningful physical education. The research was cross-cultural, taking place in universities in Country 1 and Country 2. Self-study of teacher education practice (S-STEP) methodology guided…

In Ireland, primary physical education (PE) is delivered by non-specialist classroom teachers. A growing number of primary schools are committing resources to external providers for partial delivery of the PE curriculum. Some researchers (Evans and Davies [2014; 2015]. "Neoliberal Freedoms, Privatisation and the Future of Physical…