From Comparative Education to Comparative Pedagogy: A Physical Education Case Study

In the last two decades forces of globalization and the rise of and access to information technology have transformed the nature of educational research. Traditional disciplines such as comparative education have not been immune to these transformational impacts. Although one might expect globalization to promote the study of comparative education, comparative perspectives are yet to permeate many corners of education and little attention has been paid to their potential to inform the area of physical education. This paper argues that comparative education has a unique role to play in informing physical education policy and practice. To support this claim this article presents one particular example: comparative physical education pedagogy. Therefore this study compared and contrasted two methods of teaching physical education (direct versus indirect) in order to determine which approach is more effective for student learning. The comparison was evaluated and measured for 'enjoyment', 'skill developed' and 'tactical understanding'. Participation in sport at a young age has shown to positively influence young people's physical activity later on in their life. At a time where participation rates in youth sport are dropping significantly and there are high rates of obesity, the results of this study will be of interest to policy makers as the findings have the potential to contribute to new knowledge and practice in education. Further, by providing a case study for physical education, we demonstrate how comparative education can play a useful and multidimensional role in wide and varied areas of educational research.