"We [physical educators] have struggled to find success in terms of national acceptance because we have been unable to produce the volume of data on a proactive basis that we demonstrate a major impact on the entire society. We seem to be content with the past approaches using educational arguments for our existence rather than being able to openly produce valid, reliable, and objective evidence that shows we are change agents." (Holyoke, 1986)
The nature of Physical Education creates a unique set of grading issues that must be resolved (Melograno, 2007). Assessment in Physical Education is a critical and a sensitive topic. No teacher wants to be criticised that his/her grading practices are inconsistent, unreliable, invalid, and obsolete, is there?
I suppose this is my courageous attempt to simply instil awareness to my colleagues in the profession that assessment in PE needs attention in order for us to become real change agents. We all face the same challenges and criticisms from people outside our circle. They may not be vocally or loudly expressing their dissatisfaction. But we know there’s something wrong in the system. My hands are up and I dare to be a change leader necessary for the good name of our profession.
In many Asian countries, I have witnessed how teachers are respected for their professional status. In terms of grades students receive after a long course of assessments, students tend to accept whatever mark they get without questions thinking that the grade was the result of their performance and the teacher’s professional judgment is unquestionable. Parents as well seldom question the grades their children get particularly in PE. Physical educators are professionals capable of using sound professional judgment in the assessment of students (Hensley et al, 1987). However, few teachers have been trained to implement valid, reliable, and consistent assessment procedures.
How significant is assessment in PE anyway? Why is it so important? Why don’t we just face it out of our education system? The following are a few reasons why assessment is significant and must remain part of our PE programs.
1. Assessment is a required teaching competency to obtain information about the needs and progress of learners (Andrews and Barnes, 1990)
2. Assessment is a formal accountability that provides evidence to indicate predetermined goals and objectives are met (Safrit, 1990)
3. Assessment provides regular monitoring of student progress results in greater achievement and increased motivation (Veal, 1988)
4. Assessment serves as program justification and professional accountability (Matanin and Tannehill, 1994)
In other words, assessment is the element that makes PE a justifiable academic subject. Not providing assessment in PE only equates the subject to a fancy big recess time.
To these days, physical educators commonly use factors such as attendance, participation, PE uniform, effort, and attitude in their assessment for grades. Motor skill performance, what students can do, level of students’ physical fitness or their effort to improve, periodical tests, homework, and projects may also be included in PE teachers’ rubrics of assessment. If you are still using these factors, you are following an obsolete grading system. There’s gotta be a much better way to assess learners in today's modern Physical Education.
I mentioned in my past articles that no two children are ever the same. The same applies with teachers, don't you think? If a school has a few PE teachers, most parents would wish their children would be under the kindest, most tolerant, and most generous teacher in terms of giving high grades. Teacher A’s assessment process would totally be different from Teacher B’s or Teacher C’s.
So teachers, how do we make valid, reliable, and consistent grades in PE for our students?
Here are my thoughts about this. First, let’s distinguish which factors are the PREREQUISITES and which are the REQUISITES. Prerequisite factors are necessary to ensure learners’ involvement in class. Attendance, punctuality, PE uniform, learners’ readiness, behaviour and attitude, interest, and effort are prerequisites but they are not our focus learning targets, are they?
For every PE class, there could be 1 or 2 unprepared students who may have forgotten to wear their PE uniforms. Sure thing, it is a responsibility they failed. But think about it. Should their grades suffer just because they haven’t participated in your class? In this scenario, as educators, what are we trying to assess? If we give them a failing grade for missing the class, we are measuring the wrong factor. On the other hand, it is unfair for the rest of the class who did their part to learn, isn’t it?
I have this idea that if a student comes to class unprepared, why don’t we just set up a contingency plan as educators? For example, schools should have extra pairs of uniforms ready. Lend the PE uniform to a student who failed to prepare. A possible consequence could be hand-washing the uniform after school. It’s educational and it solved the problem without focusing on whether coming to class unprepared should be graded lesser than coming to class prepared.
If the problem is not wearing the appropriate footwear, why don’t we think about solutions. Discuss it with students. Sure thing, it’d be an educational topic for them to prepare for their unit. How about an alternative task instead of punishing the child’s unpreparedness?
What I am trying to suggest is this: prerequisites are factors we can deal with. Sure they can be challenging. But these factors are our responsibilities to our students - making sure they are ready for the unit. Punishing them by giving them less grades because they failed in the preparation reflects our inability to connect with our students and reinforce policies in our classes. It’s not the learners’ fault. It could be ours.
We know that when students are not interested and not prepared, they will not do their best in class. Their readiness determines their success. However, their readiness should not be the focus of assessment. Our focus should be their success.
Success is the requisite. We measure success by generating evidence that our goals and objectives are met. We monitor students’ progress making sure they are on the right track to reaching academic goals. We may adjust our approach or method to help them succeed when we see they are stagnated. At the end of the day, the assessment is just a tool to gather information about students’ progress. Evaluation, on the other hand, makes use of data generated from assessments to provide meaning to students’ progress.
Furthermore, I’d like expand the concept of evaluation from the traditional way we conduct it in schools. Think about it… most evaluations and assessments are one way. It has always been teachers assessing their goals and objective through their learners. Students are always the subjects of assessments. I can’t help myself but to regard it the same as measuring the height and the weight of students and putting a tag on them displayed on their report cards. Nothing else.
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| Oliver Gomez's perception on traditional assessment |
The kind of assessment and evaluation I want to implement in the future will involve students in the process the same way as they are involved in the preparation. Assessment and evaluation should not only be teacher towards students. It should also be students toward the activity unit, or students toward themselves. Assessment and evaluation are skills students themselves need to learn. These skills are necessary to make healthy and good decisions for themselves.
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| Oliver Gomez's proposal for modern PE assessment |
Works Cited:
Matanin, M., Tannehill, D., http://journals.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/Documents/DocumentItem/10021.pdf. Journal of Teaching in Human Kinetics Publishers, inc.
Melograno, V., http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ795585.pdf, JOPERD, Volume 78 No. 6, August 2007
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