Interpretive and critical research in sport and physical education

Qualitative research encompasses two distinct approaches, interpretive research and critical research. Locke has provided an excellent review of the assumptions and methods of interpretive research. His article provides an important service to the field by informing the broad range of scholars within physical education about this growing area of research. The one weakness of his review is that it may not emphasize sufficiently the need to ground qualitative research in an understanding of the social sciences so that the researcher can provide an adequate context for the interpretation of data. Locke limits his review primarily to the interpretive approach and mentions critical theory only briefly, a decision that seems appropriate in an introductory tutorial. Most of the qualitative research being done in sport and physical education is interpretive, not critical. However, a few of the researchers in this area seem to be moving toward a critical perspective. Therefore, this article attempted to provide a brief overview of critical qualitative research.