Principals’ reflections on their engagement in a two-year action research project in physical education

Principals are positioned at the heart of professional development in schools as their engagement has significant consequences for the ways in which professional development is enacted. However, little is known about how principals engage with professional development generally, and action research more specifically, in physical education. Therefore, in this study, we explore how five principals reflect on their engagement in a two-year action research project using individual semi-structured interviews. Through a thematic analysis we develop three themes highlighting various patterns across the principals’ reflections. In the first theme, ‘Reflecting on their engagement from and with different positions’, we showcase how principals engage in action research in different ways and to varying degrees. In the second theme, ‘Reflecting on action research from a tension between trust and the need for visible change’, we present what we found to be a tension among principals between the need for documentable changes and their wish to trust in action research processes that do not necessarily lead to observable change. In our third theme, ‘Reflecting on their engagement in action research as “business as usual”, we elaborate on how principals’ reflect on how schools are always in development mode, but also how action research makes these processes more explicit and visible. Overall, our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of principals’ engagement, an area that has been under-explored in the action research literature in physical education.