Understanding the development of physical education professionals’ policy capacity

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and others have emphasized the need for all physical education (PE) professionals to prioritize attention to, and action on, PE policy to improve quality provision. Yet, policy neglect remains arguably normative in PE due, in part, to a lack of preparation for policy in higher education and professional learning programmes. Furthermore, research on what such preparation should entail has not been conducted. Therefore, in this research we asked: What are the key facilitators, barriers, and content in the development of PE professionals’ policy capacity (i.e. policy interest, understanding, and involvement/action/ initiative)? A two-round interview and survey Delphi investigation with 16 international PE professionals with experience in policy research and/or practical initiatives was conducted. Participants were asked about key barriers, facilitators, and content in the development of their own and others’ policy capacity. Reflexive thematic analysis revealed that while participants acknowledged the barriers of lacking time, professional learning, confidence, and accessible language, the barrier they identified as most consequential was misunderstanding the nature of policy as only fixed documents developed in a top-down and linear process. In contrast, participants identified their shifts to understanding policy as more than static texts and as happening in complex processes to be a key facilitator, with reflexive interactions and relationships with others being critical to facilitating that perspective shift. Other facilitators identified included the issuing of moral imperatives to ‘use’ policy to generate change, policy learning in higher education, and the interrogation of policy. When considered alongside the existing literature, these findings highlight that: (a) dispelling unrealistic traditional policy myths and fostering complex policy perspectives is central to policy capacity development; (b) particular configurations of policy-focused learning communities are a key way to do that; and (c) one must determine their personal policy purpose to engage in such work.