The current standards, assessment and accountability movement relies heavily on the production of both valid and reliable data as evidence of student progress and the quality of educational programs. Statewide assessments in physical education can provide the public, administrators, state or federal governments, and accrediting groups with assessment data as a means to evaluate students and existing physical education programs. If teachers are to use rubrics (e.g. PE Metrics, SCPEAP) to assess student competency in movement forms (Standard One), it is important that the data is accurate. The purpose of this study was to investigate the accuracy of middle school teachers using scoring rubrics to assess student competency in movement forms and teacher compliance with the testing protocols of a state assessment program.
Method
In 2007 South Carolina, one-third of the middle schools were required to collect and submit student assessment data on the four state mandated performance indicators as part of a state level assessment program. Assessment material is available for sixteen movement forms for the assessment of performance indicator one, competency in movement forms. Teachers follow testing protocols to videotape student performance and then assess the performance using a scoring rubric. Teachers submit videotapes, student scores, and class roles to SCPEAP. A monitoring committee samples the teacher data and checks for compliance with testing protocols and data accuracy.
Class data sets (N=317) were submitted from 116 middle school teachers. Factors related to teachers' ability to use scoring rubrics accurately, data compliance, and differences between teacher scores and monitoring committee scores were also investigated. Data sources included teacher assessment data submitted to SCPEAP, assessment material generated by the monitoring committee, and SCPEAP records.
Analysis/Results
Data analyses included descriptive analysis, analysis of variance, and Pearson correlation. The majority of the data sets were accepted by the monitoring committee; however, minor protocol violations were common. Female teachers submitted compliant data more often than male teachers. The activity assessed was also related to compliance and accuracy.
Conclusions
Teachers can use scoring rubrics to accurately assess student motor performance when making a judgment about competent and not competent student performance. It is more difficult for teachers to accurately score using four performance levels than to discriminate between noncompetency and competency.
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