Researching the lived experience of physical education: some pedagogical insights

ABSTRACT

Research that focuses on the lived meaning of specific phenomena with pedagogical significance in physical education is very limited. Moreover, the relevant literature concerns studies that explore the lived meaning of specific physical education phenomena, instead of approaching the physical education lesson as a totality that comes into existence through the class period. This paper concerns a larger research study on the lived experience of physical education, and it reports the findings of two physical education class periods of two sixth-grade classes in a primary school. It draws on phenomenological philosophy and, in particular, van Manen’s methodological suggestions. The purpose is to provide an insightful pedagogical understanding of the physical education practice as it is lived through the class period. Derived from the philosophical method of reduction, the philological method of vocative dimension and the empirical data collected from close observations and interviews from both children and the physical education teacher regarding their lived experience of the two specific class periods, two essential themes are phenomenologically addressed. These are (i) play and the metaphor of the circle and (ii) the dynamic of the lesson turns upside down. The paper concludes by considering the issue of responsibility, which carries an essential character for the professionals who share a phenomenological interest on pedagogy.

KEYWORDS:

• Pedagogy
• phenomenology
• Max van Manen
• lifeworld
• physical education

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank my supervisor, Professor Stiliani Chroni, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 It should be noted that the etymological analysis of the Greek language is an extremely difficult task. All relevant comments in this paper only serve towards its purpose.

2 Regarding the metaphors that I used in this paper, I have been inspired by Nikos Lygeros, a person whose work covers mathematics, art, linguistics and other fields.

3 Play here is considered in a broad sense. [For a more comprehensive understanding see for example Murphy and Ní Chroinin (2011)].