Dr Carla Valerio

Despite recent advances in women's sport in Portugal, coaching remains a highly gendered domain in which women continue to be underrepresented in leadership positions. Understanding the barriers that constrain women's coaching careers is therefore essential for advancing gender equality in sport. This study aimed to validate the Barriers to Sports Coaching Questionnaire for Women (BSCQW) for the Portuguese sport context. Following a translation and cultural adaptation process, data were collected from a sample of 660 Portuguese women coaches representing a wide range of sports and competitive levels. A formative measurement approach was adopted and assessed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling. The results demonstrated acceptable collinearity among indicators and meaningful contributions of organizational, sociocultural, intrapersonal, and interpersonal barriers to their respective constructs. The sociocultural barriers construct was refined by removing one item due to limited relevance in the Portuguese context, resulting in a more parsimonious model while preserving theoretical coverage. Overall, the findings supported the validity and contextual adequacy of the BSCQW Portuguese version. This instrument provides a robust and practical tool for researchers, sport organizations, coach education programs, and policymakers to identify the barriers faced by women coaches, thereby informing initiatives to support women's coaching careers in Portugal.

Understanding how preservice teachers (PSTs) form their epistemological beliefs (EBs) is crucial for seeing how these beliefs influence teaching practices, particularly whether they encourage active learning or mere knowledge transmission. Building on this premise, this study aimed to examine the interplay between student-centred pedagogical strategies used in a 2-year physical education teacher education (PETE) programme and the development of PSTs’ EBs. Data were collected throughout the 2-year PETE programme using a longitudinal case study design, incorporating focus group interviews, reflexive logs, and participant observations with 11 PSTs. Findings revealed a non-linear trajectory across three phases: in the first year, peer-teaching, micro-teaching, questioning, and reflexive practices encouraged the development of more constructivist-aligned understandings. During the transition to school placements, PSTs experienced a ‘reality shock’ that led to temporary regressions towards control-oriented and authority-based beliefs. In the second year, however, PSTs re-engaged with earlier strategies, reconnecting with beliefs that emphasised student autonomy, collaboration, and active learning. These findings suggest that PETE programmes should deliberately design opportunities for autobiographical, experiential, and professional pedagogical strategies, while providing ongoing support to help PSTs navigate setbacks and progressively develop more sophisticated EBs.

This self-study approaches the complexity of the internationalisation of the academic workforce in Health and Physical Education Teacher Education (HPETE), particularly in early career stages. Although scholars have been exploring the transition from Health and Physical Education (HPE) teachers to HPE teacher educators, less is known about the journeys of graduating doctoral students with no substantive teaching experience in K-12 settings entering teacher education. Moreover, as the HPETE labour market continues to globalise, and as increasing numbers of early-career academics accept international roles in countries other than those in which they completed their doctoral studies or their own HPETE, in-depth explorations of how these academics develop their professional identities are critical. The present self-study addresses these two important gaps in the literature by exploring an early-career HPE teacher educator’s process of identity construction while navigating the complexity of working in an international context and doing so without school teaching experience. This work utilises critical moments to explore perceptions of professional self-worth, understandings of competence and efforts in relation to approaching teaching through distinct pedagogies, relationships inside and outside the institution, and the impact of the doctoral training focused on the research component. This self-study contributes to the development of insights that can support international early-career teacher educators to engage in the exploration of their individual journeys towards identity development with the collaborative support of critical friends. Additionally, this paper aims to call out to a broader discussion on how to support international early-career teacher educators navigating change and adaptation in the HPETE space.

This chapter explores a gymnastics unit of work based on overarching situated learning and student-centered principles that also lay at the heart of games-based approaches' conceptual foundations. With the constituents of 'Gymnastics for All' in Australia that explore multiple gymnastics disciplines, this unit uses Laban's Movement framework to explore different dimensions of movement interaction (body, space, effort, and relationships) that guide students toward the creative exploration of gymnastics-related dominant movement patterns, individual (individual elements and links) and group elements (spotting and acrobatic elements) and contact with apparatus. The situated learning principles will be explored throughout both levels of the presented pedagogical framework in an intertwined manner according to the student's learning progression (situated in their context, progression, collaboration, and pace of new achievements). This unit proposes collaborative interaction movement, creative exploration, critical thinking development, and accountability through designing, preparing, and presenting a thematic choreography in work groups.

Much of the traditional wisdom in elite sports suggests that authoritative approaches, where head coaches (HCs) are in entirely charge of the sporting process, are needed for success. While there have been numerous studies to demonstrate that the best HCs ‘lead from behind’ there are fewer studies which examine, in detail, the processes by which HCs get the best from their coaching teams. The case study described in this article, sought to provide insights into how a HC, from his own and his three assistant coaches’ perspectives, applied a caring approach to optimise the orchestration processes of their coaching staff. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with each participant. The data were transcribed and analysed thematically drawing on Noddings’ concept of caring as a guiding framework. Findings demonstrated that the HC, through empathy, altruism, authenticity, allowing opportunities for failure to enrich learning, and working behind the scenes, created an environment where the ACs felt heard and cared for. In the eyes of the ACs, this approach enhanced their sense of belonging and commitment, legitimising the demand of their work, without romanticising the notion of care. The way in which the HC used a caring approach while orchestrating, provided the means to challenge the pre-conceptions that authoritative approaches are needed so that HCs are in entirely charge of the sporting process. Findings of this study provide insights into how caring can play acritical role in the orchestrating process, thereby contributing to improving the collaborative working dynamics of coaching staff worldwide.

The transition from teacher to teacher-educator is significant. However, teacher educators are typically dropped into teaching at the tertiary level, with little professional preparation, induction or professional learning to be able to teach in this new context. As a result, this transition can be challenging. Despite a growing body of research on the transition from teacher to teacher-educator, little is known about how Physical Education (PE) teachers transition to becoming Physical Education teacher educators and faculty members. This collaborative autoethnography explores the journey of an early career PE teacher educator transitioning while navigating the tension between his teaching and academic habitus, supported by a critical friend going through the same career stage. Reflections were collected through reflective field notes and audio summaries and were explored through ongoing discussions with a critical friend. Ultimately, this project provided a unique insight into how PE teachers transition from teacher to teacher educator and how they can re-think and re-contextualize many of the practices they embodied as teachers, particularly with the support of a critical friend. This process was transformative for both teacher educators and concludes with a call for other Early Career Academics (ECA) to engage in a similar process to strengthen their transition into teacher education.

Simone Biles is the most decorated gymnast, male or female, in history. She won her first world championship all-around gold medal in 2013 and has not lost an all-around competition since.

She arrived in Paris with 37 medals from World Championships and Olympics, including 27 golds.

She has since added to this total, winning team gold – her eighth Olympic medal – and she looks set to increase her tally when she competes in the finals for all-around, beam, floor and vault.

Biles returns to the Olympics after a difficult experience at Tokyo 2020. The athlete we have seen perform so far at Paris is more relaxed, more mature and still giving us the performances of the best gymnast in the world.

To deepen the understanding of effective teaching and learning practices in outdoor education, research has been conducted around strategies based on socio-constructivist principles and student-centred learning that place the teacher in a facilitator role. This move aligns closely with the theoretical framework of Social Learning Strategies (Wenger, 1998). In Health and Physical Education (HPE) literature, considerable attention is paid to identifying the effectiveness of social learning strategies as a successful process for teacher learning, revealing the need to deepen the understanding of this learning process, particularly in contexts that promote socioconstructivism. This study aimed to explore if the context of HPE Outdoor Learning can promote specific conditions for successful teacher professional learning through the development of social learning strategies. The aim was to analyse the HPE outdoor learning practices in an innovative programme, comprehend the use of social learning strategies both in the teacher staff and with the visiting teachers, and understand how these are transferable to school-based settings. This project was contextualised in an Outdoor and Environmental Learning programme based on the HPE Australian Curriculum developed through student-centred pedagogies. This study followed a longitudinal follow-up data collection and analysis throughout three distinct moments of the participant's interactions within the programme over one year to explore the progress before, during and after interaction with the programme (pre-programme, during programme activities, and post-programme). Data was gathered through the semi-structured interviews pre and post-engagement in the programme, participant-observations and informal conversations during the activities development, teacher-staff meetings, and the researchers's field diary, reflexive log. Data analysis was grounded in a multiphase approach of inductive and deductive analysis to challenge new interpretations and provide meaningful and practical application of the findings. The analysis resulted in an understanding of the main strategies developed to promote teachers' professional learning and experience sharing throughout their participation in the programme that promotes social learning strategies. Accordingly, findings explore the development of professional learning strategies in different levels of social interaction. Namely, how the teacher staff from the programme is cultivating a community of practice based on trust and value attribution. Also, the knowledge transfer based on a brokering system occurring between the internal community of practice and the visiting teachers promotes transformation and disruption of teaching and learning practice. Finally, how were these insights embedded in the visiting teachers' practices in a school-based setting after participating in the programme.

The present study's purpose was to comprehend the internal dynamics of the social learning interactions inside a Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) programme where pre-service teachers (PST) were learning and implementing student-centered approaches (SCA). Specifically, this article draws on the Value creation cycles framework to unveil the education development challenges faced by PSTs inside of their PETE Social Learning Space.

The context was a two-year PETE programme in Portugal. In year one, the participants were three university teacher educators (TE) and 25 PSTs. In year two, the participants were 3 PSTs (from the original year one class) in their school placement, one university supervisor (US), and one cooperating teacher (CT). This study was an ethnography with a two-year longitudinal design. Data were collected through the ethnographer's participant-observations, meetings of the PSTs with the mentoring team (TEs, US, CT), and the ethnographer's field diary, reflexive log, and audio recordings. Data analysis involved the constant-comparative grounded theory method. The analysis resulted in understanding the challenges faced by PSTs while working in contexts of possible development of social learning spaces. Accordingly, findings explore the development of PSTs throughout the two years of the programme by analysing their involvement in each cycle of value creation: the PSTs’ work group social dynamic; their experiences of peer-teaching SCAs before school placement; PSTs’ intentions about implementing SCAs; the individualisation of PSTs learning process; relationship dynamics with stakeholders (TEs, CTs, and US); and, the lack of practical examples of SCAs implementation in the host school. The analysis of the value creation cycles encourage PETE programmes to invest in understanding the development of social learning spaces, before introducing them in programme policy, by acknowledging the importance of developing a mechanism of analysis and follow-up of its development.

Research demonstrates the benefits of communities of practice (CoP) for teachers' professional learning in Physical Education (PE). However, much less is known about how CoPs can be used to understand pre-service teachers' (PSTs) professional learning in their Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) programmes. Negotiation of meaning (NofM) is a crucial concept regarding learning inside of a CoP. Hence, understand how meaning is negotiated in initial teacher professional development might allow the enhancement of the social learning strategies in PETE programmes.
This article draws on the CoP theoretical framework, and specifically the concept of NofM to understand how PSTs negotiated meaning during a two-year PETE programme. In particular, the focus is on the challenges faced by PSTs throughout the PETE social interactive process.
The setting was a PETE programme in Portugal. In year one, the participants were three university teacher educators (TE) and 25 PSTs. In year two, the participants were three PSTs from year one who were in their school placement, a university supervisor (US) and one cooperating teacher (CT).
This study was an ethnography with a two-year longitudinal design. Data were collected through the ethnographer's participant-observations (first author), meetings of the PSTs with the mentoring team (TEs, US, CT), and the ethnographer's field diary, reflexive log, and audio-recordings. Data analysis involved the constant-comparative grounded theory method.
Analysis resulted in the identification of three key challenges during the course units, for PSTs in the first year of their PETE programme: (a) the diversity and disconnections within the course units; (b) (the lack of) membership; and (c) the absence of democratic spaces in PETE class discussions. In the year two of PETE during the school placement, three challenges were identified for the negotiation of meaning (NofM): (a) the lack of dialogue with and focus on pedagogical practice by the cooperating teacher; (b) working together and the pressure to individualise PSTs' education process; and (c) unreachable support and supervision from the university.
We suggest that PETE programmes should emphasise pedagogical strategies that create spaces for the cultivation of CoPs. For instance, we suggest PST engagement in continuous and planned group work across curricular years (e.g. peer-teaching and micro-teaching experiences) to increase work group membership. We recommend the emphasis on discussion sessions mediated by a facilitator (e.g. TEs, CTs, or US) where the different working groups could share their repertoire of learning experiences as a CoP. Moreover, we suggest optimisation of a base of pedagogical knowledge regarding course units' integration between the TEs of the PETE to systematise the process and also, an increased connection between the university and the host school. Additionally, we propose continuous professional development by the CTs to facilitate the requirements of the PETE programme.