Where are the data?

A scoping review of the research on physical education in Iceland

Abstract

Evidence-based education should be the modus operandi of any institution of higher learning. The educators should, therefore, be involved in field-specific research, and the students should participate in such research to some degree. Practically oriented disciplines such as physical education should not be exempted from this principle. While two institutions offer physical education as part of their teacher education in Iceland (the University of Iceland and Reykjavik University), the research production of the teachers that provide the above-mentioned education appears to be mainly related to other fields. Thus, the aim of this research article was to examine the scope of research focusing on physical education within the Icelandic context. The study adhered to the principles of scoping reviews, and utilized both a systematic search on the Web of Science and a manual search on Google Scholar (the snowball method).The inclusion criteria covered all peer-reviewed research articles on physical education in Iceland from 2013–2023. The findings revealed that the subject has in fact not been prioritized during that period, as only a single research article fulfilled the inclusion criteria for this study; and that particular project was instigated from an institution outside of Iceland. Seeing that so few research articles fulfilled the inclusion criteria, a comprehensive manual search of all research produced by all teachers involved in the education of future physical education teachers at the two universities was performed. Out of 783 unique research articles published by the relevant academic staff, only eight articles were on physical education, and they were all published by two adjunct lecturers from Norway. Prevalent research themes during the studied period were coaching, performance analysis, health, physical activity and sociology. These findings are problematic from an evidence-based education perspective, considering how many of the sport science students end up as physical education teachers. If these students are educated by sport scientists who adhere to the logic and principles of sports in their teaching, and public health experts that are more interested in health outcomes than learning, and not by experts in the field of physical education, it is likely that the students’ teaching will be in line with the sports discourse or the health/activity discourse. In other words, their teaching would revolve around a sportified curriculum inspired by the multiactivity model, where physical activity and time devoted to moderate to vigorous physical exertion would be important criteria of excellence. Certain structural impediments play a role in the current system (e.g., size of the study programmes and funding). However, the author believes there are solutions at hand that could ameliorate the predicament he has outlined. Some of the solutions offered include 1) encouraging researchers who are already active to focus more on physical education, 2) prioritizing the field of study the next time funding for a doctoral student is available, 3) encouraging the use of more small-scale, practically oriented, research projects such as action research or lesson study projects as final course examinations. The projects that maintain the required academic standards could subsequently be processed and published as peer-reviewed research articles. By increasing fieldspecific research production and gathering relevant data from the field at hand, educators and students alike would probably gain important perspectives and experiences helping them to improve their understanding of the subject. These practices would also give the students the necessary tools to meet the competency criteria set by the Ministry of Education, which state that “teachers should be capable of applying their knowledge to develop and research their own work and practices,” and “have the foundation to renew their practices and contribute to better results by conducting research on their own work and utilizing the research of others.”