Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

As part of a longitudinal research project on the transition from physical education teacher education (PETE) to school physical education (PE) in Sweden, and exploring whether and how PETE matters, this paper ‘represents’ a PE teacher’s professional journey from PETE to the induction phase of PE teaching. The study focuses on the PE teacher’s use of, and reflections on, assessment for learning (AfL) (Wiliam, 2011) at different stages of the journey. The purpose of the study is to contribute knowledge about how positive experiences of AfL during PETE can enable the use of AfL in school PE for a newly qualified teacher. Using narrative inquiry (Casey, et al., 2018), supported by occupational socialisation theory (Lawson, 1983), this study focuses on one male PE teacher’s professional journey from PETE to the induction phase of PE teaching. The PE teacher’s tale is represented in first person, as if it were told by ‘the traveller’ on the journey. The underlying data consists of record-ings of a campus-based PETE seminar, a stimulated recall interview with the partic-ipant during his school placement and two interviews with him in his role as a newly qualified PE teacher at two different schools. Through the PE teacher’s tale, we show how the course on assessment for and of learning in PETE and the student teacher’s positive experience of using AfL during his practicum seem to have in-spired him in his later positions. On his professional journey, the traveller encounters barriers such as his colleagues’ contrasting beliefs, dominating PE teaching traditions, and pupils’ resistance. Still, AfL is not washed out from his teaching practice. The key strategies of AfL, such as sharing learning intentions, providing feedback, and activating pupils as learning resources for one another, are rather used to create conditions for progression. In the discussion, we suggest that PETE can make a difference for student teachers who have gained positive experiences of AfL in au-thentic teaching situations and are able to navigate between the barriers to the use of AfL in the induction phase of PE teaching. The usefulness of this study is its po-tential to inspire teacher educators to implement AfL in different learning tasks dur-ing PETE and student teachers to practice AfL during their school placements. If this would occur more regularly, a content such as AfL would have a better chance of “surviving” the transition from PETE to school PE.

Casey, A., Fletcher, T., Schaefer, L., & Gleddie, D. (2018). Conducting practitioner research in physical education and youth sport. Reflecting on practice. London and New York: Routledge.

Lawson, H. A. (1983). Toward a model of teacher socialization in physical education: entry into schools, teachers' role orientations, and longevity in teaching (part 2). Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 3(1).

Wiliam, D. (2011). What is assessment for learning?. Studies in educational evaluation, 37(1), 3-14.

Formative assessment strategies are often conceived as central within teacher edu-cation (Cañadas 2023). These strategies are to be learned as content during teacher education and then transformed into methods when newly graduated teachers (NQT) enter their occupational practice. The aim of this presentation is to contribute to knowledge of how content discourses in physical education teacher education (PETE) matter for physical education (PE) practice. We will do this by answering two research questions: 1. What components of formative assessment are made visible in PE by NQTs? 2. What components of the formative assessment discourse can be traced back to PETE? This study is part of a larger project investigating transitions of content discourses from PETE to school PE. Data was collected from participants when they were engaged in two different educational contexts: in PETE as preserv-ice teachers (PST) and in PE as NQTs. In the PETE context, a total of 26 PSTs stud-ying at two different Swedish PETE institutions (15 from A and 11 from B) partici-pated. In the PE context, a total of 13 PE teachers (from the group of 26 PSTs), having graduated from the two Swedish PETE institutions (9 from A and 4 from B), participated. Data collection methods from the two contexts were video-recorded and visual observations, group interviews, individual interviews, Stimulated Recall (SR)-interviews and text analysis of course handbooks. In the study we use the con-cept pedagogic discourse (Bernstein 1990) to describe how content is constructed, recontextualised and realised through text, talk and practice. The way in which the NQTs in this study talk about formative assessment thus illustrate what constitutes this discourse in school PE. In the preliminary analysis, four components (sharing learning objectives, feedback, using students as resources, and grading) have been discerned as dominating. Inspired by Foucault’s (1991) genealogical approach, we will also search for traces of dominating and marginalized components of the form-ative assessment discourse in the PETE context, and the PSTs talk about formative assessment. We will draw on research on didactics in PE (Quennerstedt & Larsson, 2015) to analyse what components the formative assessment discourse in PE and PETE is built of, how and why formative assessment is conducted in a certain way, and who the producers of the components building the formative assessment dis-course in PE and PETE are.

References

Bernstein, B. (1990). The structuring of pedagogic discourse: London: Routledge.

Cañadas L (2023) Contribution of formative assessment for developing teaching competencies in teacher education, European Journal of Teacher Education, 46:3, 516-532

Foucault M (1991) Nietzsche, Genealogy, History. In: Rabinow P (Ed) The Foucault Reader. An Introduction to Foucault’s Thought.

Quennerstedt M & Håkan Larsson (2015) Learning movement cultures in physical education practice, Sport, Education and Society, 20:5, 565-572

An ongoing discussion is a debate about the benefits of outdoor activities for health, where a narrowness regarding the benefits as a matter of curing or preventing disease has been questioned. Hence, there is an urgent need to theorize further the relationship between outdoor activities and health with robust theoretical frameworks that can guide research and practice, taking different aspects of human-nature relations into account. In the paper, a critique of pathogenic perspectives of health is forwarded, as well as a critique of an anthropocentric human centeredness of health. Instead, a salutogenic model and the metaphor of the swimmer in the river is used to discuss the relation without being restricted to health as the absence of disease or to human health and wellbeing. In the paper, seven different relations, or salutogenic questions, are provided, moving from the swimmer in the foreground, to swimmers in the river to finally foregrounding the river.

Feedback is considered essential for student learning (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Mulliner & Tucker, 2017). However, the meaning of feedback differs among teach-ers and students and consequently also how feedback is used and to what extent it provides opportunities for learning and positive experiences (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Mulliner & Tucker, 2017). The aim of this study is to explore in what different ways newly examined physical education (PE) teachers experience the meaning of feedback through their actions in, and reflections on, their professional practice in school. This presentation reports a sub-study within a larger project with the aim of investigating the transition of Assessment for learning (AfL) as a content in physical education teacher education (PETE) and its transformation from university studies to professional practice. AfL, defined in the larger project, includes five key strate-gies, one of which is feedback. This study is zooming in on feedback. A phenomeno-graphic approach provided possibilities to understand teachers’ ways of experienc-ing feedback as similar to knowing feedback. Researchers use phenomenography to investigate peoples’ qualitatively different ways of experiencing phenomena in the world, and how someone experiences something can also be understood as a way of knowing something. The phenomenographic approach thus also provided possi-bilities to analyse qualitatively different ways of knowing feedback, as we did in this study. Data was generated through transcribed video-stimulated interviews with eight teachers, two transcribed focus group interviews with four teachers in each group and fieldnotes from nine observed lessons conducted by nine newly examined teachers. Preliminary results show different ways of knowing feedback as well as what aspects of feedback the newly examined teachers foreground in their teaching. The results will be discussed in relation to more or less complex ways of knowing feedback as well as in relation to how PETE can help students experience feedback in more complex ways and, through this, offer students in PE extended and positive learning experiences.

References

Hattie, J., & H. Timperley. (2007). “The Power of Feedback.” Review of Educational Research, 77 (1): 81–112.

Mulliner, E. & Tucker, M. (2017). Feedback on feedback practice: perceptions of students and academics. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 42 (2): 266–288, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2015.1103365

It is well established that students in higher education need to develop evaluative skills in order to become effective learners (Guest & Riegler 2022). Assessment for Learning (AfL) is a model for assessment that strengthens learning in schools as well as in higher education (Black et al 2002). This is also the case in physical education teacher education (PETE) (Eather et al 2017, Macken et al 2020) and in school physical education (Leirhaug 2016). One of the key learning strategies in AfL is to activate peers as resources for learning, often operationalised as peer assessment. In PETE, peer assessment (or peer-assisted learning in a broader meaning) has proven to strengthen learning for both the observer and the observed (Lamb et al 2012). 

One dimension of peer assessment, that has only scarcely been covered in the PETE context (Macken et al 2020) but that is more highlighted in research of peer assessment in general teacher education (see e.g. Kilic 2016, Tait-McCutcheon & Bernadette Knewstubb 2018), is the tensions inherent in giving feedback to peers on their work, peers who might also often be friends. According to Kilic (2016, 137) preservice teachers “do not feel comfortable when critiquing another student” and Tait-McCutcheon and Knewstubb (2018, 773) argues that “peer assessment could reflect friendships more than learning outcomes”. 

Research demonstrates a complexity with regards to the potential for peer assessment in PETE. On the one hand, preservice teachers have expressed that giving feedback to peers creates a positive, safe, equal and relaxed learning environment (Lamb et al., 2012) and peer assessment has been reported to improve competence, confidence and self-efficacy among preservice teachers (Eather et al., 2017). On the other hand, a study by Macken et al. (2020) reported that preservice teachers believe their students would be mean to each other if implementing peer assessment during their school placement practice in PETE.

In this paper, we aim to further explore the complexity involved in peer assessment in PETE to get a deepened and more differentiated picture of this phenomenon. Our overall aim is to contribute to more knowledge about how to involve  preservice teachers in PETE and students in school physical education as resources for learning without risking to cause harm. Drawing on the call from Scanlon et al. (2022) for more studies on how assessment is taught in PETE, our specific aim in this paper is to investigate preservice teachers’ views on what as well as how peer assessment is taught in PETE, to be used in school physical education. We will use Pierre Bourdieu’s (1990) concept of capital, as well as the work of Hay and Penney (2013) on how accountability mechanisms functions in assessment, in order to analyse what is assigned value in peer assessment. The two questions that will guide our analysis in this paper reads: What mechanisms are assigned value in peer assessment according to preservice teachers in PETE? And: How do the mechanisms that are assigned value in peer assessment in PETE function according to preservice teachers? More knowledge about the what and the how in teaching of assessment practices in PETE can improve these practices within school physical education.

Methodology

The study presented in this paper is conducted as part of a greater project with the aim of exploring how PETE matters for school physical education. In the overall project we have recruited preservice teachers, with physical education as one of their subjects, during their last year in teacher education. During this last year, one campus-placed course in assessment and one school placement course, constituted the contexts from which we collected empirical material to this study (Authors 2021).  

The participants in this study were 21 preservice teachers from two different PETE institutions in Sweden (10 from uni A and 11 from uni B). The empirical material analysed in this study compriced of: 

1. Three audio-recorded seminars (90-120 min each) from the campus-based assessment courses (one seminar from uni A and two from uni B) conducted before the preservice teachers’ school placement studies.
2. Seven individual semi-structured interviews (40-70 min each) (Kvale 1996) conducted during visits at the preservice teachers’ school placement studies (all from uni A).
3. Five individual Stimulated Recall (SR)-interviews conducted during visits at the preservice teachers’ school placement studies (one from A, four from B).
4. Two audio-recorded and semi-structured group interviews (40-60 min each) (Kvale 1996) from the campus-based assessment courses (both from A) conducted after the school placement studies. 

After having had the empirical material transcribed by an external part, a thematic content analysis was initiated by a process of familiarisation in which all four researchers were engaged (Braun et al 2017). Inspired by an abductive approach (Alvesson & Sköldberg 2017), we allowed ourselves to be open to alternative theories that could help explain the empirical material. The choice of research object was initiated by the impression from the interviews that giving feedback to peers is surrounded by a complexity, both in PETE and in school physical education. The identification of social relationships and certain types of bodies and movements as assigned with value when giving feedback to peers guided our attention towards Bourdieu-inspired interpretations of the social capital (Beames & Atencio 2008) and the physical capital (Redelius & Hay 2010).   

Educational challenges following when ‘the what’ is reflected in ‘the how’

The findings indicate that when the what-aspect of ‘social relationships’ is to be implemented into an how-aspect, the preservice teachers calls for continuous interaction ‘over time’ in order to build a safe and an allowing climate for learning. While this interaction can be implemented in PETE and in school physical education, allowing for school children to build social capital (Beames & Atencio 2008), a result from this study that calls for further discussion is how PETE can make continuous interaction between preservice teachers and school students possible during school placement studies. 

When the what-aspect of ‘articulating what to learn’ is mirrored in relation to the how-aspect of giving ‘correct feedback’ in peer assessment, this displays that physical capital in school physical education is strongly connected to standards of excellence and norms of right and wrong movement technique (Redelius & Hay 2010). These golden norms seem to be upheld by the displayed lack a common language for learning (Larsson & Redelius 2008). A question following from this study is what resources preservice teachers are offered within PETE to embody a language for learning in school physical education? 

This study also made visible that ‘the emphasis of certain forms of knowledge ’ is highly valued when preservice teachers are to give feedback to their peers, to their students (during school placement) or when they engage students to give feedback to each other.  The preservice teachers claim to handle this ‘what-aspect’ of peer assessment by focus their attention on ‘managing the sensitivity’ arising when themselves or their students are to comment on each others’ bodies in movements. 

In conclusion, the combination of social and physical capital decides what is possible to say to whom when preservice teachers and students are to give feedback to peers in PETE and in school physical education.

References

Alvesson M and Sköldberg K (2017) Tolkning och Reflektion. Vetenskapsfilosofi och Kvalitativ Metod [Interpretation and Reflection. Philosophy of Science and Qualitative Method]. Lund: Studentlitteratur. [In Swedish.]

Beames, Simon and Atencio, Matthew (2008)'Building social capital through outdoor education', Journal of Adventure Education & Outdoor Learning,8:2,99 — 112

Black, P., C. Harrison, C. Lee, B. Marshall, and D. Wiliam. 2002. Working Inside the Black Box. Assessment for Learning in the Classroom. London: GL Assessment

Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. (Richard Nice, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.

Eather, N., Riley, N., Miller, D., Jones, B. (2017) Evaluating the Effectiveness of Using Peer-Dialogue Assessment for Improving Pre-Service Teachers' Perceived Confidence and Competence to Teach Physical Education. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 

Guest J & Riegler R (2022) Knowing HE standards: how good are students at evaluating academic work?, Higher Education Research & Development, 41:3, 714-728

Hay, P. J., and D. Penney. 2013. Assessment in Physical Education. A Sociocultural Perspective. London: Routledge.

Kilic, D. (2016) An Examination of Using Self-, Peer-, and Teacher-Assessment in Higher Education: A Case Study in Teacher Education, Higher Education Studies, 6(1), 136-144. 

Kvale, Steinar (1996). Interviews. An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. California: Sage Publications.

Lamb P Lane K & Aldous D (2012) Enhancing the spaces of reflection: A buddy peer-review process within physical education initial teacher education, European Physical Education Review 19(1) 21–38

Larsson H & Redelius K (2008) Swedish physical education research questioned—current situation and future directions, Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 13:4, 381-398, DOI: 10.1080/17408980802353354

Leirhaug 2016 Exploring the relationship between student grades and assessment for learning in Norwegian physical education, European Physical Education Review, 22(3) 298–314

Macken S, MacPhail, A & Calderon, A (2020) Exploring primary pre-service teachers’ use of ‘assessment for learning’ while teaching primary physical education during school placement, Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 25:5, 539-554

Redelius, K. & Hay, P. (2010) Defining, acquiring and transacting cultural capital through assessment in physical education, European Physical Education Review, 5(3):275–294:

Scanlon D, MacPhail, A Walsh C & Tannehill D (2022): Embedding assessment in learning experiences: enacting the principles of instructional alignment in physical education teacher education, Curriculum Studies in Health and Physical Education, epub ahead of print

Tait-McCutcheon S & Knewstubb, B. (2018) Evaluating the alignment of self, peer and lecture assessment in an Aotearoa New Zealand pre-service teacher education course, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43:5, 772-785

Peer assessment has been proven to improve learning for both the observer and the observed. One dimension of peer assessment that has been given little attention in the context of physical education teacher education (PETE) is the tension that exists when peers give feedback on each other's work. In this paper, we report on Swedish preservice teachers' (PST) views on peer assessment used in PETE school placements. Our findings reveal four mechanisms of peer assessment assigned value in PETE: (i) building social relations, (ii) making 'what to learn' visible, (iii) giving correct feedback, and (iv) handling sensitive and gendered comments. Inspired by Bourdieu, we discuss learning potentials and complex challenges with peer assessment, where the combination of social capital and physical capital decides what is possible to say and to whom when peer assessment is used in the PETE school placement and in school physical education (PE).

As a part of the discussion about how movement knowledge is valued in physical education teacher education (PETE), issues of assessment have been brought to the fore. Studies have shown that how and when movement knowledge is assessed is strongly culturally dependent and based different epistemological orientations. The aim of this paper is to analyse and discuss how preservice teachers in Sweden perceive assessment in an invasion games course according to the games performance assessment instrument (GPAI). The empirical material presented in this study is based on a web-survey carried out at the end of the invasion games course where the participants were asked to write comments of how the experienced GPAI and its relevance in school physical education. The findings suggest that the preservice teacher experience prediction and measurement of appropriate and non-appropriate behaviours in GPAI as problematic from a didactic perspective. The ideas of "correctness" and "appropriateness", which are fundamental in GPAI, is discussed in the relation to the socially critical constructivist epistemology that underpins Swedish PETE.

In the context of physical education teacher education (PETE), content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) are constructions of different forms of teacher knowledge that have been used to address knowledge of a subject and knowledge of teaching a subject to young people (Herold & Waring 2009, Siedentop 2009, Tinning 2010). This paper addresses how these two forms of teacher knowledge are valued through a study of learning outcomes (LOs) in syllabus documents at a sample of PETE universities in New South Wales, Australia. The US educationalist Lee Shulman (1987) originally defined CK as “the accumulation of literature and studies in content areas, and the historical and philosophical scholarship on the nature of knowledge in those fields of study” (p. 8-9). In the PETE context, CK is constructed by various sub-disciplines (Tinning 2010). According to Siedentop (2009), one of the most fundamental as well as the most marginalized of these sub-disciplines, is PE teacher students’ knowledge of movement. In this study, specific interest is devoted to how CK and PCK are expressed in documents regulating sport and movement courses within PETE. Regarding PCK, Shulman (1987) suggests it to be “that special amalgam of content and pedagogy that is uniquely the province of teachers, their own special form of professional understanding” (p. 8. Globally, there seems to be an agreement for the importance of future PE teachers to experience movement and sport practices during their education. However, there also seems to be different ideas about whether CK or PCK should by prioritized in the teaching and assessment of movement and sport practices during PETE (Backman & Pearson 2016, Capel, et al 2011, Herold & Waring 2009, Johnson 2013, Tinning 2010). The study of how LOs are expressed in an educational context can inform us not only of what forms of knowledge are most valued. It might also say something about PE teacher educators’ abilities to formulate his/her expectations of the student’s performance. For this instance, the discussion of learning objectives as formulated in university courses has lately been intensified. In Europe, this discussion has been strongly related to the intentions in the Bologna-declaration (Adam 2008, Brooks et al 2014, Hussey & Smith 2008). Some of the issues raised in the literature have concerned ways of formulating verbs in learning outcomes, student activity built into learning outcomes, and level of difficulty in learning outcomes (Adam 2008, Biggs & Tang 2007). Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyse LOs formulated in syllabus document for sport courses at a sample of Australian PETE institutions. Further, the aim is to discuss these LOs through a framework regarding teacher knowledge originating from Lee Shulman (1987). Although PETE, like university programs in other subjects, are historical and cultural constructions, research from European countries such as UK, France, Sweden (Backman &Pearson 2016, Capel, et al 2011, Loquet & Ranganathan 2010) display similarities with the Australian PETE context. One characteristic feature of PETE in all these countries is the relative emphasis on constructivist epistemology and critical pedagogy, although this feature appears to be somewhat stronger in Australia compared to Europe and US. In times where the content in PETE is crowded and the time for teaching is short, a study of what forms of PE teacher knowledge are valued in some Australian PETE institutions, a context where the production of PETE research has been significant during the last decades (see e.g. Forrest 2015, Garrett & Wrench 2012, MacDonald et al 2002, Tinning 2010), can therefore serve as a valuable contrast for the discussion of knowledge forms in European PETE contexts.    

Methods/methodology (up to 400 words) 

By the end of 2014, there were 24 universities across Australia offering PETE, eight in New South Wales (NSW). These eight universities in NSW makes the total sample (N=8) in the study reported in this paper. To the collection of the empirical material in form of written documents, five PETE-universities (n=5) of the total sample have contributed. Each university was asked to contribute with two unit outlines for courses in sport and movement for PETE students. A unit outline is a written document intended to give the student more specific information compared to what a curriculum document for a course will provide (e.g. regarding examination, schedule, expectations, etc). Further, a unit is generally only a part of a whole course. The collected unit outlines contained a the total number of 73 LOs. The sample of unit outlines can be described as a strategic and purposeful sample (Patton, 2002). The empirical collection from the participating universities was carried out during November and December 2014. After information about the study through e-mail and phone, a total number of 10 unit outlines were sent to the author by e-mail. In the analysis Alvesson and Sköldberg (1994) description of analytical induction or abduction has served as an inspiration. This means trying to let, on one hand, the empirical material inform the choice of theoretical perspective while on the other hand, acknowledging that some specific theoretical perspectives, in this case Shulman’s (1987) forms of teacher knowledge, have been viewed as more relevant than others before conducting the study. The primary analysis has been divided into two steps. In the first step, when reading through the collected and transcribed material questions such as: ‘What movement and sport practices do students meet during PETE in NSW?’ and ‘How are movement and sport practices expressed through the LOs in the unit outlines?’ has been asked. Asking these questions to the material has involved a process of clustering described by Patton (2002) as convergence which has been followed up by a process of divergence, that is, an exclusion of formulations and quotes that do not fit into the identified pattern. In the second stage of the analysis, the choice of Shulman’s (1987) concepts for forms of teacher knowledge was confirmed and strengthened as we discovered that the different views of assessment of movement and sport practices were clearly related to our chosen definitions of CK and PCK.

Expected outcomes/results (up to 300 words) 

The preliminary analysis of the LOs shows that the knowledge in sport and movement courses at the investigated PETE institutions is sometimes formulated as CK and sometimes as PCK (Shulman 1987). Within these two main categories there were also sub-categories related to abilities expressed through different verbs. With regards to PCK one such main sub-category addressed the students’ ability to “plan, arrange, carry out and assess different forms of teaching situations”. Further, another ability expressed within the PCK category was the ability to “observe, analyse and critically reflect over educational practices”. These two PCK sub-categories clearly reflect research emphasizing critical pedagogy in Australian PETE (Garrett & Wrench 2012, MacDonald et al 2002, Tinning 2010). Further, two other forms of sub-categories, expressed both as CK and as PCK, was firstly, the ability to “perform movements” and secondly, the ability to “demonstrate an understanding” of different forms of movement and sport practices. Findings will be discussed in relation to research criticizing the decrease of sport performances in PETE (Herold & Waring 2009, Siedentop 2009) as well as work emphasizing the importance to teach and assess movement practices to PETE students in contextualized situations (Backman & Pearson 2016). The concept of “understanding” was found to be very commonly used in LOs both when expressed as CK and as PCK. Generally, students were encouraged to “demonstrate an understanding” of different forms of knowledge. In literature of how to formulate knowledge in higher education, the concept of understanding has been discussed, sometimes criticized as lacking precision (Adam 2008, Biggs & Tang 2007), sometimes claimed to be under-contextualised (Hussey & Smith 2008). Part of the discussion will focus on various meanings of understanding in sport courses at some Australian PETE-institutions and how these meanings can differ depending on whether CK or PCK is addressed.

Intent of publication:  

References (400 words)

Adam, S. (2008). Learning Outcomes Current Developments in Europe: Update on the Issues and Applications of Learning Outcomes Associated with the Bologna Process. Retrieved 12 May 2015, from http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/hogeronderwijs/bologna/BolognaSeminars/documents/Edinburgh/Edinburgh_Feb08_Adams.pdf

Alvesson, M. & Sköldberg, K. (1994). Tolkning och Reflektion. Vetenskapsfilosofi och Kvalitativ Metod. Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Backman, E. & Pearson, P. (2016) ‘We should assess the students in more authentic situations’: Swedish PE teacher educators’ views of the meaning of movement skills for future PE teachers. European Physical Education Review, 22, 47–64.

Biggs, J., & Tang, C. (2007). Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Third edition. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Brooks, S., Dobbins, K., Scott, J. J., Rawlinson, M., & Norman, R. I. (2014). Learning about Learning Outcomes: The Student Perspective. Teaching in Higher Education, 19, 721-733.

Capel, S., Hayes, S., Katene, W. and Velija, P. (2011). The interaction of factors which influence secondary student physical education teachers’ knowledge and development as teachers. European Physical Education Review, 17, 183–201.

Forrest, G. (2015). Systematic assessment of game-centred approach practices – the game-centred approach Assessment Scaffold. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 20, 144-158.

Garrett, R. & Wrench, A. (2012). ‘Society has taught us to judge’: cultures of the body in teacher education. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 40, 111–126.

Herold, F. & Waring, M. (2009). Pre-service physical education teachers’ perceptions of subject knowledge: Augmenting learning to teach. European Physical Education Review, 15, 337–364.

Hussey, T., & Smith, P. (2008). Learning Outcomes: A Conceptual Analysis. Teaching in Higher Education, 13 (1), 107-115.

Johnson, T.G. (2013). The value of performance in Physical Education teacher education. Quest, 65, 485-497.

Loquet, M. & Ranganathan, M. (2010). Content knowledge in teaching, an investigation into an adequate ‘milieu’ for teaching dance: The case of Indian dance in France. European Physical Education Review, 16, 65–79.

MacDonald, D., Hunter, L., Carlson, T. & Penney, D. (2002). Teacher Knowledge and the Disjunction between School Curricula and Teacher Education. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 30, 259-275.

Patton, M.Q. (2002). Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods. London: Sage Publications.

Shulman, L.S. (1987). Knowledge and Teaching: Foundations of the New Reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1-21.

Siedentop, D. (2009). Content Knowledge for Physical Education. In R. Bailey & D. Kirk (Eds.), The Routledge Physical Education Reader (pp. 243-253). Abingdon: Routledge.

Tinning, R. (2010). Pedagogy and human movement: theory, practice, research. Abingdon: Routledge.

The purpose of this article is to explore and problematise teachers’ talk about outdooreducation in New Zealand. The focus is on what can be said, how it is said and thediscursive effects of such ways of speaking. The inquiry draws on Foucauldiantheoretical insights to analyse interview transcripts derived from semi-structured interviewswith eight outdoor education teachers who work at secondary schools in NewZealand. Findings suggest that different discourses co-exist and are intertwined in theparticipants’ talk. Associated with a dominating discourse of adventure are subdiscoursesof risk and safety, pursuit-based activities, skill and assessment. Connected to adiscourse of learning are subdiscourses of environment, sustainability and socialcritique. Resistance towards a dominating discourse of adventure with pursuit-basedactivities can be traced in a discourse of learning in the form of a more placeresponsivepedagogy.