Skip to main content

CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS article

Front. Educ.
Sec. Teacher Education
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1480690

The Epistemic Judgement Framework (EJF): a reflexive tool for Physical Education teachers' professional development to support Quality Physical Education

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 University of Central Lancashire, Preston, United Kingdom
  • 2 University of Central Lancashire, Larnaca, Larnaca, Cyprus

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The need for Quality Physical Education to provide the many benefits the subject offers is well established.Unfortunately, in too many areas ineffective teaching and learning practices are limiting the profession's response to children's developmental needs. Many teachers' professional development interventions are criticised as not enabling the required philosophical, and pedagogical shifts that are needed to improve practice and student outcomes. The paper presents a new integrated model, the Epistemic Judgement Framework to enhance this process. Epistemology offers an important lens by which to explore teacher beliefs and behaviours, however, existing research in this field is very specific in scope, which makes learning transfer difficult. To better explore this area a fuller appreciation of the bioecological environment in which teaching takes place as well as the Critical Realist view of the teaching world is introduced. The purpose of this article therefore is to propose a framework to guide teacher professional development to support the achievement of Quality Physical Education that merges environmental considerations and exploration of hidden influencers with epistemological research on teacher decision making and behaviour. Practical applications for teacher professional learning utilizing the model and future directions are suggested.

    Keywords: epistemology1, professional judgement2, physical education3, teachers4, quality PE5

    Received: 14 Aug 2024; Accepted: 28 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Grecic, Sprake, Thomson, Christodoulides and Palmer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: David Grecic, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, United Kingdom

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.