In Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE), as in education in general,  teachers’ intended learning goals never completely align with students’ ‘lived’ learning goals (Andrée, 2007; Mendoza et al., 2024). In fact, understanding how learners understand what they are supposed to learn is “[…] the heart of the problem that teachers face in the classroom” (Nuthall, 2004, p. 295). Additionally, in teacher education, there is a general agreement on the importance of teachers’ subject content knowledge to teach wisely (Shulman, 1987; Hudson et al., 2023). This is also the case in PETE (Herold & Waring, 2017). Since there is a lack of agreement on what is subject  knowledge and especially what movement capability is in PETE,  (Larsson et al, 2022; Nyberg et al. 2024) the gap between intended learning goals and lived learning goals poses additional challenges for PETEeducators.

This study aims to address the question of how knowledge in movement is understood as subject knowledge, and a learning goal in the teaching and learning in PETE. The study is part of a larger project of which the aim is to explore and understand subject knowledge in movement in Swedish PETE.

PETE scholars have highlighted a need to identify the knowledge that student teachers need to develop in order to teach wisely. This is especially urgent regarding movement knowledge (Herold & Waring 2017; Nyberg et al, 2024) since there are varied understandings of the meaning of movement knowledge in PETE as well as in school PE (Nyberg et al., 2024). Partly due to the academization of the school subject, movement knowledge is in many cases not regarded as legitimate knowledge and questions have been raised about how it should be taught and assessed in PETE (Backman & Pearson, 2016). Swedish PETE educators claim that movement capability is important, but they cannot clearly state what should be learned by their students with regards to movement (Backman & Pearson, 2016).

Valued movement knowledge for future PE teachers was identified by Backman and Larsson (2016) through analysing Swedish PETE institutions’ course syllabi. Regarding movement knowledge, as expressed in the learning outcomes, this knowledge was mainly formulated as an ability to demonstrate decontextualized physical skills in specific movement activities (Backman and Larsson, 2016). The findings of another study (Nyberg et al.2023) show that teacher students’ as well as teacher educators’ experiences of the teaching and learning in movement courses when transformed into online teaching due to the Covid-19 pandemic that  aspects of valued movement knowledge in PETE had weak connections to natural science but  a strong connection to the experiential and social aspect of movement knowledge. The experiental aspect of knowledge in movement is also highlighted by Johnson (2015), who suggests a philosophical basis “for the practice of physical activity in PETE curricula” (p 228) as being essential disciplinary knowledge in PETE .”To be educated in the discipline of physical education, a preservice teacher must not only obtain propositional or theoretical knowledge about physical activity; a preservice teacher should also experience physical activity in ways that would generally differentiate the preservice teacher from others who have not or are not pursuing a degree in physical education” (p.235). In sum, these examples show that research findings show diverse conceptions of the meaning of movement subject knowledge in PETE.

In this study we investigate what seems to be, in the educational practice, valued movement knowledge in terms of the ‘lived’  learning goal in movement courses in PETE.

In order to unpack and verbalise aspects of lived movement knowledge, which is to a large extent tacit, involved in the ‘doings’ of teachers and students (Carlgren, 2020), we needed to study teachers’ and students’ non-verbal actions and interactions as well as what they expressed verbally during the teaching and learning. The larger project , of which this study is a part, involved observations of teaching and learning movement at the four universities where the project members are based. To generate empirical data, we used participating video observations, interviews with students and fieldnotes from movement courses in ball games, gymnastics, dance, parkour and acrobatics. The data used in this study were video recordings and fieldnotes from courses in gymnastics, parkour and acrobatics. Here, we align with the idea of Activity theory as outlined by Engeström (2001). Activity theory is based on Vygotsky’s notion of learning in communities and was further developed by Leontiev and later Engeström. The unit of analysis focused on by Leontiev, is the situated individual and group activity within a collective activity system and their use of mediating tools, within this identified activity. Later, Engeström (2001) highlighted the importance of the interrelated actions between people in a collective activity and the objects (for example mastering a dance or understand causes of global warming) that people directed their actions towards. The focus of interest in Activity theory is to understand and make sense of the goal-directed actions (Engestrom, 2000). Engeström has developed and used Activity theory to understand what objects actions in work places are directed towards. An aim with these studies was to identify possible contradictions in the goal-directed actions of individuals and different groups (Engeström, 2000). The object of schools’ and universities’ activities could be seen as education whereas the object of teaching could be students’ learning of something (Pei-Ling Hsu & Laura Venegas, 2018). In this study we observed teachers’ and students’ actions in micro activities such as courses and didactic events occurring during the teaching and learning in three different university courses addressing movement capability. We were interested in what knowledge seemed to be ‘at stake’ based on the interrelated actions between students and students and teachers.

Preliminary findings in this study show that in some cases, students’ group activities are directed towards knowledge quite different from the PETE educators’ intended learning goals, explicitly expressed in the beginning of the courses. Examining the PETE educators’ activities, including their body language and verbal as well as non-verbal feedback, however, shows that in some cases, they implicitly direct students’ actions towards other learning goals than the ones they express explicitly in their instructions. These ‘lived’ learning goals could for example, concern knowledge about didactical issues and how to structure gymnastic equipment in order to clarify where to start and where to finish a movement. The object of the activity in other cases could be described as biomechanical knowledge where important aspects regarding the right technique come to the fore. The findings will also provide examples of how subject knowledge in movement in PETE can be explicated and thereby add to the international discussion of subject movement knowledge in PETE. We will discuss the findings in relation to previous research on movement knowledge and the educational practice in PETE.

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