«Jeg skjønner ikke bæret av hvorfor vi gjør dette? Det finnes jo mye bedre aktiviteter som gir bedre trening» : En kvalitativ undersøkelse om hvordan elever erfarer fenomenet lek i kroppsøvingsfaget etter å ha deltatt i en undervisningsperiode med lek

Play has been awarded greater attention in the new physical education curriculum due to the subject renewal. Based on this, the purpose of our study is to investigate how students experience play in physical education after participating in a teaching period with play as the learning object. We developed a teaching period that tried to follow the intentions and guidelines of the new curriculum. To investigate how students experienced the teaching period, we used a qualitative research design with research interviews as a method. We conducted two focus group interviews with ten informants from a high school. The informants had participated in the teaching period in advance of the interviews. The analysis of this study is based on the phenomenography and Helle Karoff's theory on play. Our findings show that students experience play in physical education in four different ways. Students experience play in physical education as instrumental, less serious, meaningless and as a fun break. The students experience on play in physical education do not meet their own expectation on what they are supposed to learn in the subject. It seems that the students have found it difficult to understand why one should play in physical education, despite the fact that an increased focus on play is something that corresponds with the subject renewal. Keyword: Physical education, play, subject renewal, experiences, phenomenography, Karoff, qualitative approach