The purpose of this article is to describe published scholarly and research work to determine the extent to which they contributed to the physical education reform during 2000-2010 in China. Using an analytical reasoning approach, we analyzed 730 scholarly articles on K-12 physical education published in the 6 top kinesiology scholarly journals. Both conceptual synthesis and statistical reasoning approaches were used in the analysis. It is clear that variation in the number of empirical research fluctuated corresponding in time to important decisions made by the central government. The number of empirical research declined sharply after the central government published its initial guidelines for K-12 physical education. Statistical evidence suggests that empirical research should have made more contribution to formulating the new 2012 guidelines.