If you have conducted or read self-study of teacher education practice (S-STEP) research, there is a good chance you have encountered critical friends in the methods section. There is also a good chance that section was brief — maybe a sentence or two — without much explanation of who that person was, what they actually did, or how their involvement shaped the research. A new systematic review published in Quest (March 2026) by Dr. Yongjin Lee, Dr. Youngjoon Kim, and colleagues takes a close, evidence-based look at exactly this problem.
The paper, titled “How Are Critical Friends Utilized? A Systematic Review of Self-Study in Physical Education Teacher Education,” draws on PETE-specific S-STEP literature to map out how critical friends are selected, what roles they play, and where the field’s reporting practices fall short. The findings are both validating and, for many researchers, a little uncomfortable.
What Is S-STEP, and Why Do Critical Friends Matter?
For those newer to the methodology, S-STEP is a qualitative research approach that situates the researcher’s own teaching practice as the subject of inquiry. Unlike action research, which focuses primarily on improving practice without necessarily centering the practitioner as a person, or autoethnography, which centers the self without necessarily foregrounding practice, S-STEP occupies a distinct space — examining the self-in-practice. The researcher is simultaneously the inquirer and the researched.
This methodological positioning is what makes critical friends not just useful but essential. When you are the lens through which all data is filtered, it becomes difficult to see your own blind spots, challenge your own assumptions, or reframe your experiences from an outside perspective. Critical friends exist to do exactly that — to push reflection deeper, offer alternative interpretations, and hold the researcher accountable to rigorous inquiry rather than comfortable self-confirmation.
The Problem: Superficial Description
The review’s central provocation is that critical friends in PETE S-STEP literature are frequently described superficially. This does not mean the work being done with critical friends is poor — in many cases, it is rich and thoughtful. The problem is that it is not being documented. When a methods section notes that “a critical friend reviewed the researcher’s journals,” but does not explain who that person was, why they were selected, what expertise they brought, or how their feedback influenced the practice, the reader has limited to evaluate the methodological trustworthiness of the study.
As Dr. Kim notes, when roles are not defined at the design stage, they become difficulty to articulate accurately at the writing stage. This points to what the review identifies as a deeper issue: limited intentional design, not just limited reporting.
What Roles Are Critical Friends Actually Playing?
The systematic review identified six distinct roles that critical friends take on in the literature. The most common was the content expert, which makes intuitive sense. If a researcher is implementing a new pedagogical framework, they need someone who understands that framework well enough to probe its application meaningfully. The second most common role was that of the outsider, someone positioned outside the immediate institutional context who can offer fresh perspective without the biases that come from shared history or power dynamics.
The methodological expert was less common. This is the person who knows S-STEP itself well enough to ask whether the research is adhering to the quality standards the field has established. Given that S-STEP is a distinctive methodology with specific expectations around rigor, this data is worth taking, particularly for early-career researchers who may not yet have a strong intuitive feel for where the methodological lines are.
The collaborator role also surfaced as a particularly interesting variant — two or more researchers who simultaneously act as authors, subjects, and reciprocal critical friends. The potential for rich, contextualized reflection is real, but so is the risk of echo chambers. When people share the same institutional context and the same blind spots, they may reinforce rather than challenge each other’s interpretations.
The Data Independence Problem
Perhaps the methodologically significant finding in the review concerns how data actually flows through critical friend relationships. The researchers found that it is relatively rare for critical friends to generate data independently — through direct classroom observation, for example, or by gathering perspectives from students. In most cases, data reaches the critical friend already filtered through the researcher: a reflective journal, a written narrative, a set of field notes. The critical friend is then responding to the researcher’s interpretation of events, not the events themselves.
This matters for both credibility and dependability. Credibility in qualitative research refers to how accurately the study represents the phenomenon being studied — in this case, the self-in-practice. If a critical friend never has access to the unmediated practice, their capacity to challenge the researcher’s framing is structurally limited. Dependability concerns the consistency and stability of interpretation across the research process. Critical friends who are involved only at the feedback stage, rather than across the full arc from data generation through analysis, are not positioned to provide the kind of sustained engagement that strengthens dependability.
Intentional, Role-Based Critical Friendship
The review’s primary recommendation is a move toward what the authors call intentional critical friendship — designing the critical friend relationship with specific, named purposes rather than defaulting to whoever is willing and available. Instead of asking a colleague to “be your critical friend” and hoping for the best, researchers are encouraged to identify what they actually need: content expertise in a specific framework? Methodological guidance on S-STEP quality markers? Emotional support through a vulnerable research process?
For doctoral students or new faculty without established networks, this can feel daunting. The authors suggest professional conferences as genuine entry points. AERA’s self-study special interest groups and the PE-specific SIG93 both offer structured ways to meet researchers who are actively engaged in S-STEP work. The Castle Conference is another recognized venue. AIESEP and SIG93’s mentoring programs may also help connect newer scholars with experienced critical friend candidates.
Tim Fletcher and colleagues’ multi-layered critical friendship model is highlighted in the review as a strong example of intentional design — pairing an insider critical friend, who has contextual familiarity and can engage in ongoing dialogue, with an outsider who brings fresh perspective and is positioned to challenge assumptions the insider might miss. That combination of depth and distance is precisely what strengthens both credibility and dependability.
A Question Worth Sitting With
The review closes by raising the possibility of AI as a non-human supplementary critical friend — a provocative idea that the authors approach with genuine caution. The argument is not that AI can replace the human relationships at the core of S-STEP, but that it might offer specific functional value: organizing large volumes of reflective data, surfacing patterns across hundreds of pages of journals, or providing a space for more candid self-disclosure than some researchers feel comfortable with even in trusted human relationships. The consensus position is clear: AI as supplemental, human critical friendship as foundational, and transparency about AI’s role as essential if it is used at all.
The more pressing question the review leaves behind is simpler: the next time you write a methods section that mentions a critical friend, can you say specifically who they were, why you chose them, what they did, and how it changed your thinking? If not, that is a gap worth closing.
This blog accompanies the HPE Research Podcast episode featuring Dr. Yongjin Lee and Dr. Youngjoon Kim. The full article, “How Are Critical Friends Utilized? A Systematic Review of Self-Study in Physical Education Teacher Education,” was published in Quest in March 2026.
Full Article:
Lee, Y., Kim, Y., Min, H., & Lee, W. (2026). How Are Critical Friends Utilized? A Systematic Review of Self-Study in Physical Education Teacher Education. Quest, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/00336297.2026.2642801
This blog post was written with the assistance of AI to support clarity and accessibility. It is intended to help disseminate and discuss research findings with a broader audience. However, for the most accurate and reliable information—including conclusions and practical applications—please refer to the original peer-reviewed publication on which this blog is based. The peer-reviewed article remains the most authoritative source.