Physical Education – a Wicked Problem

First published 1/2/2018

Updated 8/04/2025

In this blog I try to bring together my thoughts after reading two very different pieces of writing. The first was David Armstrong’s paper Wicked Problems in Special and Inclusive Education, and the second was the recently released Positive Youth Development through Sport (edition 2), edited by Nicholas Holt.

Wicked Problems

Design theorists Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber coined the term ‘wicked problem’ in 1973 to refer to problems that are difficult to define and seem inherently unsolvable. Weber and Khademiam (2008) suggested wicked problems may seem inherently unsolvable as the causes, effects, consensus and solutions are difficult to sort out, as wicked problems have over-lapping stakeholders with different perspectives. The problems are therefore ‘relentless’, resisting being solved ‘once and for all’.

Physical education as a wicked problem

I have suggested that physical education is a pedagogical battleground (Pill, 2012) with two competing forces. One force is a discourse ‘of the physical’. This discourse places an emphasis on physical education as a form of training of the body (Gensemer, 1991). This emphasis is seen in contemporary discussions about physical education and its role in obesity prevention, physical activity accumulation, and the role physical activity in physical education may have in assisting the realisation of one’s academic potential. It is also seen in the, sport-as-sport techniques emphasis, of many physical education curricula (Kirk, 2010) and the pedagogical prioritisation of a common ‘physical education method’ (Metzler, 2011) characterised by highly directive verbal instruction, the dominance of a practice style described by Tinning (2010) as demonstrate-explain-practice, and a disconnected multi-activity curriculum where lots of movement forms are experienced under the flawed assumption that if all students try lots of things the individual will find something they like and pursue it. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that this occurs in sufficient numbers to make the assumption a reasonable argument for the practice, and there is good evidence that a great many students leave the compulsory years of physical education learning what they can't do after having been exposed to so many activities with insufficient time to develop competency at any. The other force is a discourse ‘about education’ (Penney & Chandler, 2000) and places the emphasis on student learning. This discourse places the education in physical education as the centre of discussions about the place and purpose of physical education. This discourse has seen a few iterations – the New Physical Education Movement and its emphasis on education of the ‘whole child’ through movement – for example, Humanistic Physical Education (Hellison, 1973), the Arnoldian perspective of education in, through and about movement (Arnold, 1979), and more recently ‘physical literacy’ (Whitehead, 2001) has gathered momentum.

As I 'travel around' I continue to see internationally school physical education curriculum that are 'a mile wide an an inch thick' that are still in the main the way things are done. Time is a factor in learning. If Maths have 4 lessons per week in a 5 week unit of of work that is 20 lessons. If PE has 2 lessons per week, then the equivalent learning time for PE in Maths is 10 weeks. If those lessons are 60 minutes, then the physical education teacher can teach for competency two skills in those ten weeks (based on the Get Skilled Get Active finding that it takes up to 600 minutes to develop consistency of coordination and control in a closed assessment context one fundamental movement skill).

Despite the often and well-articulated concerns with the dominant multi-activity curriculum model and instructional emphasis that sees ‘fun’, ‘fitness’ and ‘technique’ variously prioritised, they persist as the dominant ‘physical education method’. Alternatives proposed over the past thirty years, such as the various game-based teaching approaches like TGfU (Bunker & Thorpe, 1982) in the UK, the Game Sense approach (den Duyn, 1997) and Play with Purpose (Pill, 2007) in Australia and Tactical Games (Griffin, Mitchell & Oslin, 1997) in the USA, the Sport Education model (Siedentop, 1994), and TPSR (Hellison, 2003), they seem to remain ‘new and innovative’ ideas rather than mainstream.

Furthermore, physical education is often seen by physical activity providers as a business opportunity, positioned by health promotion and physical activity academics as a site to trial ‘interventions’, and identified by sport authorities as a means to increase child and youth involvement in club and community sport by providing sport specific 'give it a go' programs for PE. There are increasingly, physical education professional development entrepenaurs selling ideas through consultancy and professional development about quality physical education. Some have well researched and supported ideas on teaching for effective learning, many I have seen are 'gimmicky' and have a niave understanding of what the evidence base for what they are selling actually is.

Physical education faces a problem most other subjects do not. To the casual observer, what is done in physical education is also on offer in community sport and recreations settings and school sport offerings - so why is there a need for physical education in curriculum time? Daryl Siedentop once wrote, it can't always be assumed there is physical education in a subject called physical education, and there is often as much physical education occuring in community physical activity settings like sport as there is in PE. 

Some suggest that physical education is often confused as 'sport'. While sport in physical education is sometimes positioned negatively in physical education by critical theorising, people familiar with my work will know that I don’t position sport in physical education as inherently problematic. In fact, I discuss it in quite the opposite terms suggesting sport as a movement form that can satisfy physical education claims for educative purpose in academic sense of having clearly defined and studied bodies of kowledge and having clear vocational pathways from the 'subject', as well as from an educative purpose in a ‘social sense’ for the development of ‘active citizenship’. How sport teaching in physical education can be pedagogically framed to deliver these intentions I have attempted to capture in my writing on ‘sport literacy’ (see Drummond Pill, 2011; Pill, 2009, 2010, 20102, 2014, 2015 – see also previous blogs

Sport Literacy
Physical education: contested ground)

If physical education is a wicked problem, what is there to be done about it?

My reading about wicked problems suggests there is no ‘quick fix’ for a wicked problem. Indeed, tackling the problem head on with ‘solutions’ doesn’t seem to work for a wicked problem – and if the physical education critical theory and crises discourse is accurate, largely hasn’t ‘worked’ in changing the dominant ‘physical education method’ in schools around the globe despite the scholarly and empirical literature pretty much ‘shouting’ that it needs to be replaced. There are of course, individuals and some schools doing things differently.  

What has passed for physical education professional development has clearly not assisted the broader adoption of new ways of approaching the task of physical education curriculum and pedagogical evolution to a new ‘common practice’ or 'everyday philosophy'. Research tells us the ‘tips, tricks and sharing practice PD’ while enjoyable largely does nothing to change what most attendees do when they get back to the school gym ‘on Monday’ (Armour, 2006). 

Tom Wujec* has however proposed a way of tackling wicked problems. He suggests gathering groups of people and visualising and then (literally) drawing out the problem, and that this enables people to get clarity, engagement and alignment. I wonder what this would ‘look like’ at a PE conference, and what the outcome might be for participants?

Perhaps contributing to the wicked problem of the continuance of a common 'physical education method' and a 'mile wide and an inch thick' multi-activity program design is physical education research. At a conference a few years ago, I argued that physical education research has been dominated by a critical paradigm, which has done a good job of identifying and dissecting the pedagogical and curriculum problems. However, it doesn't serve this research paradigm to seek out and discuss examples of sustained change, where the change has become the new normal. This is where I believe appreciative inquiry research has a role to play in curriculum and pedagogical evolution in physical education (Pill, 2016; Pill & Hastie, 2016). 

* see Tom’s Tedx presentation here:

https://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_got_a_wicked_problem_first_tell_me_how_you_make_toast#t-386482 )

Thanks for stopping by and reading this blog. If you would like to connect with the ideas here or any of the ideas I have blogged about, you can contact via my email here

References

Armour, K. (2006). Physical education teachers as career-long learners: A compelling research agenda. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 11(3), 203-207.

Arnold, P. (1979) Meaning in movement, sport and physical education. London: Heinemann.

Bunker, D., & Thorpe, R. (1982). A model for the teaching of games in secondary schools. Bulletin of Physical Education, 18(1), 5-8.

den Duyn, N. (1997). Game Sense - It's time to play! Sports Coach, 19(4), 9-11.

Drummond, M.J. & Pill, S.A., The role of physical education in promoting sport participation in school and beyond. In Youth sport in Australia: History and culture. Sydney: Sydney University Press, pp. 165-178.

Gensemer, R. (1991). Physical education: Perspectives, inquiry, applications. Dubuque, IA: WCB.

Griffin, L., Mitchell, S., & Oslin, J. (1997). Teaching sport concepts and skills: A tactical games approach. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Kirk, D. (2010). Physical education futures. London: Routledge.

Hellison, D. (1973). Humanistic physical education: A behavioural perspective. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Hellison, D. (2003). Teaching responsibility through physical activity. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Lerner, R.M., & Lerner, J. V. (2000). Toward a new vision and vocabulary about adolescence: Theoretical, empirical, and applied bases of a “positive youth development” perspective. In L. Balter & C. S. Tamis-LeMonda (Eds.). Child Psychology: A Handbook of Contemporary Issues (pp. 445-469). NY, NY: Psychology Press.

Metzler, M. (2005) Instructional models for physical education. Scottsdale, AZ: Holocomb Hathaway.

Penney, D., & Chandler, T. (2000). Physical education: What futures? Sport, Education and 

Society, 5(5), 71-88.

Pill, S. (2009). Sport teaching in physical education: Considering sport literacy. Creating Active Futures: Edited Proceedings of the 26^th Biennial ACHPER International Conference, Brisbane, July 8-10.

Pill, S. (2010). Sport Literacy – it’s not just about learning to play sport via ‘textbook techniques’. Journal of Student Wellbeing, 4(2), 32-42.

Pill, S. (2012). Rethinking sport teaching in physical education. Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the degree: Doctor of Philosophy. University of Tasmania.

Pill, S. (2013). Play with Purpose - Game sense to sport literacy. ACHPER Australia. Hindmarsh, SA.

Pill, S. (2014). Sport literacy: providing PE teachers a “principled position” for sport teaching in PE and a process through which to frame that teaching according to situated contextual needs. The Global Journal of Health and Physical Education Pedagogy, 3(1), 47–68.

Pill, S. (2016). An appreciative inquiry exploring game sense teaching in physical education. Sport, Education and Society, 21(2),  279-297.

Pill, S. & Hastie, P. (2016). Researching sport education appreciatively. European Journal of Educational Research, 5(4), 189-200.

Pill, S. Valuing Learning in, through, and about sport-physical education and the development of sport literacy in H. Askell-Williams (Ed.), Transforming the Future of Learning with Educational Research (pp. 20-35). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Rittel, H. W., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy sciences, 4(2), 155-169.

Siedentop, D. (1994). Sport education: Quality PE through positive sport experiences. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Weber, E. P., & Khademian, A. M. (2008). Wicked problems, knowledge challenges, and collaborative capacity builders in network settings. Public Administration Review, 68(2), 334-349.

Whitehead, M. (2001). The concept of physical literacy. European Journal of Physical Education, 6, 127-138.

Wood, T. (1993). National Education Association. NEA Proceedings 32:621.