Exploring student reflection in physical education practice

Background In a recent publication [Bjørke, Lars, and Mikael Quennerstedt. 2023. ‘Reflecting on Student Reflections in Physical Education Practice: Moving Beyond a Theory-and-Practice Divide’. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 1–14. doi:1080/17408989.2023.2281913], we conceptualised how student reflection can be understood in a way that aligns with the practical, situated and embodied nature of physical education. Although this study clarified what reflection can be in physical education practice, new questions have emerged in the wake of our discussions. One such question involves how reflection can be explored methodologically. Indeed, through mapping existing methodologies used to explore student reflection in physical education practice, we identified an urgent need for researchers to develop more coherent and rigorous frameworks for exploring student reflection in physical education practice so that our field can move beyond making educated guesses about the potential role of student reflection in physical education practice and its relationship to education and learning. Purpose The purpose of this article is to suggest and discuss methodological tools to better explore and understand reflection within the context of physical education practice. Methodological considerations By outlining previous methodologies used to explore reflection in physical education, we identified three challenges that need to be addressed in research: (1) foregrounding student reflection as the object of knowledge in research, (2) theoretically opening up for student reflection as situated and embodied, and (3) methodologically delineating and empirically capturing student reflection. We address these three challenges by providing methodological examples of how researchers can position reflection theoretically, formulate research questions, generate and analyse data and make claims about student reflection in physical education practice. We then extend our suggestions and determine their usefulness for teachers interested in learning more about how reflection can make their pedagogical practices more educative. Conclusion We argue that there is an urgent need to foreground student reflection in physical education research and to develop more coherent and rigorous methodologies for empirically exploring student reflection that, over time, allows cumulative knowledge about the why(s), what(s) and how(s) of student reflection in physical education to be built.