Professor David Grecic is leading a transnational research project supported by the IPLA to gain qualitative comparative data on PE teachers’ knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and practice in relation to Physical Literacy (PL). With a team of researchers from across the globe Professor Grecic hopes to contribute to the understanding of how PL is being interpreted, promoted and adopted in different countries. This data will help inform recommendations of what is needed to more effectively introduce, develop and support PL aligned practice in each country. A brief outline of the project is as follows:
Background The World Health Organisation (WHO) advocate for Quality Physical Education (QPE) around the world and the important role that PL plays within it. Research promoting the development of a Global Physical Literacy Action Framework notes that the PL field is characterised by parallel developments, fragmented initiatives, conceptual uncertainties, ineffective translations, and a lack of prospective orientation (Carl et al., 2024).
Methods In–depth qualitative semi-strucurted interviews with in service PE teachers (n=12) from 10 countries (Australia, China, Cyprus, Egypt, India, Malaysia, North Macedonia, Portugal, Serbia, UK, US). The data (n=132 interviews) are being subjected to Framework Analysis to gain insights within and across case and category summaries.
Research Team David Grecic, Andrew Sprake, Ivan Curovic and Mehvish Bashir(University of Lancashire, UK), Efstathios Christodoulides (University of Central Lancashire, Cyprus), Jose Amoroso (Institute Polytechnic of Leiria, Portugal), Khaled Mohammed Abdelkarem, (Assiut University, Egypt), Li Ping (Hunan Normal University, China), Nigel Green (IPLA), Mawarni Mohamed (UITM, Malaysia), Alyx Taylor (University of Health Sciences, UK), Biljana Popeska (University of Luxemburg, LUX), Ilija Klincharov (St Cyril and Methodius University, North Macedonia).
Results Initial findings highlighted a range of common issues across the study sites and present various intra and inter-country recommendations. For example, PL is often misunderstood in respect of its philosophical grounding, policy aims and perceived outcomes for children. Where PL is being described in detail PE teachers still struggle to describe how their pedagogy and practices align to the PL concept. Full analysis will be completed by November 2025.
Conclusion Findings so far support research highlighting PL’s contested nature around the world. PE teachers generally are presenting a very low level of knowledge and understanding about PL but many do have a strong interest and willingness to learn more about the PL concept. Recommendations at this point would suggestreconceptualising the PL term in each country, that promotes rather than detracts from the learning focus of PE. It would seem of great value if effort could be made to translate country specific PL frameworks, statements and definitions into curricula guides and support for PE teachers’ practice.
For more on PE and PL in curricula across 40 European countries, see the recentypublished collaboration: Carl, J., Goss, H., Lundvall, S., Pavlova, I., Algurén, B., Antala, B., Bartle, G. et al. (2025). Compatibility of physical education curricula with physical literacy across 40 European countries, Journal of Curriculum Studies, DOI: 10.1080/00220272.2025.2523436