What were you thinking? A methodological approach for exploring decision-making and learning in physical education

Abstract

The broad purpose of this paper is to consider the relationship between decision-making and learning. Specifically, our aim is to propose a methodology that provides a theoretical framing along with procedures for investigating this relationship in Physical Education (PE). By utilizing selected parts of John Dewey’s educational theories, the paper presents a theoretical exposition of decision-making as an individual process containing both ‘practical’ and ‘cognitive’ aspects. By combining this theoretical conceptualization with a description of concrete research methods, the paper proposes a methodological approach enabling researchers to get empirically closer to the phenomenon of individual decision-making within PE learning. We argue that by doing so, researchers in the field of PE can study certain aspects of learning not explicitly emphasized within existing methodological approaches.