Pupils’ meaningful experiences in outdoor aquatic education

The experience of meaning is essential for the development and well-being of young people, with schools seen as key places for offering meaningful educational experiences. Outdoor aquatic education has been part of the Norwegian physical education curriculum since 2020, and this study aims to explore pupils’ meaningful experiences in this context. The pupils’ experiences are interpreted through the tripartite definition of meaning in life (Martela and Steger, 2016) and the perspective of meaningful physical education (Beni et al., 2017). The participants were Year 10 pupils from two lower-secondary schools. Data generation involved observations of seven outdoor aquatic education lessons (260 pupils), followed by 10 group interviews (57 pupils) and a qualitative questionnaire (115 pupils). The data were analysed using Braun and Clarke's (2019) reflexive thematic analysis. The analysis identified four themes that explain how pupils experience outdoor aquatic education as a meaningful activity: (1) important physical learning, (2) an authentic experience, (3) mastery of discomfort, and (4) feeling safe in the uncertain. The themes show that pupils’ perceptions of meaning are connected to both teachers’ instructional choices and the unique aspects of the activity, which include the discomfort of cold water. Cold-water exposure was linked to feelings of dread-joy, mastery, achievement, and personal growth. These experiences were seen as personally relevant, with a broader significance for pupils’ lives beyond the physical education setting. The study suggests that outdoor aquatic education offers each pupil various and contradictory experiences, and that experiences of meaning transform in a positive direction through participation.