Taken-for-granted truths about digital technology in physical education during upper secondary practicum

Abstract

Societal and curriculum developments in Norway encourage teachers to develop practices that utilise digital technology. In physical education (PE), digital skills are recognised both as tools for developing subject-specific competence and as prerequisites for demonstrating competence. The national PE curriculum further emphasises play, movement learning, and practising over sports, and encourages student-centred teaching approaches. Meanwhile, pedagogical practices continue to be shaped by dominant discourses that promote particular understandings of PE. To gain insight into how preservice teachers (PSTs) develop knowledge about integrating digital technology into PE, we scrutinised their ways of reasoning about the use of digital technology during practicum teaching. We applied a Foucauldian framework to a reflexive thematic analysis of 16 PSTs’ reflective notes from their six-week practicum in upper secondary school. The analysis generated two themes that shed light on taken-for-granted truths about digital technology in PE. The first demonstrates how PSTs rejected digital technology as screen time that threatened their opportunities to activate pupils’ bodies. The second theme concerns how PSTs accepted videos as beneficial for activating and instructing pupils when they were included as ‘skilled instruction’ within a broader range of activities. The study suggests that when digital technology is implemented in PE practices dominated by an activation discourse and a PE-as-sport-techniques discourse, it is perceived as a threat to time devoted to physical activity. Furthermore, in this discursive space, integrating technology encouraged teacher-centred practices that prioritised skilled instruction across a range of activities, and limited the exploration of digital technology in PE for other purposes.