Reflexive thematic analysis of phase one data revealed the key facilitators, barriers, and content in the development of physical education professionals’ policy capacity. Specifically, it was 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. These findings extend the state of the art in physical education, education, and policy studies by being among the first to empirically investigate what policy preparation should entail and ultimately highlighted 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 mechanism to do so; and (c) one must determine their personal policy purpose to engage in such work. These findings can be used to inform the development of much-needed and desired evidence-informed policy preparation initiatives in teacher education, continuing professional development, and postgraduate education within physical education, education, and other public sector arenas.
Reflexive thematic analysis of phase two data enabled the translation of participants’ complicated policy processes into practical policy lessons and extend the state of the art by being among the first to do so. Specifically, three key lessons were identified: (a) policy is messy: accept and prepare for this through timing and compromise; (b) evidence does not always look and function as you would expect: narrative is critical for persuasion; and (c) policy involvement entails emotionally challenging ethical dilemmas: know your purpose to maintain integrity. Furthermore, the creation and testing of the novel Policy Process Case Method protocol not only contributes to the new hybrid field of applied policy process research but means the policy process experiences of others can be translated into practical policy lessons for themselves and others to learn from.
Reflexive thematic analysis of the phase three data revealed various, and often intermeshed, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that an (early career) academic may encounter when developing an Open Educational Resource for the first time. These include, but are not limited to: (a) tensions with other academic priorities necessary for career progression (e.g. publishing journal articles); (b) misunderstanding Open Educational Resources as exclusively dynamic digital products needing to be developed ‘from scratch’; (c) marked differences in the level of supports available from one institution and context to another; and (d) moral tests to forgo control over one’s educational product creation and license an Open Educational Resource as openly as possible. While previous literature on this topic offered generic ‘how to’ guides and macro-level analyses of Open Educational Resouce issues, these findings provide insight into the individual-level realities involved, which academics report the lack of being one of the key barriers to their engagement in Open Educational Resource development. This could result in more academics creating Open Educational Resources, thereby broadening educational access and impact.
This fellowship’s publication of the PEP-4-QPE extends the state of the art as it is among the first policy-focused professional learning tools for (physical) educational professionals. Importantly, its publication into multiple languages ensures broad and more equitable uptake and its nature as an Open Educational Resource means that there is no financial burden on the user/learner as, for context, textbooks and professional learning programmes on policy can cost on average €200 and €6000, respectively.
Ultimately, this fellowship’s contributions to professional physical education stakeholders’ policy capacity will benefit these professionals’ daily working lives as recent studies indicate they report management of policy to be one of the greatest challenges facing their practice. Reducing the policy burden can allow these professionals to focus on ensuring students receive quality physical education which can enable young people to develop the essential physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional skills needed to become healthy, active, and engaged citizens who UNESCO describe to form the basis of sustainable development (specifically in the areas of goal 3: good health and well-being, and goal 4: quality education).
