Background/Purpose: Guided by Dweck's (2002) and Nicholls' (1989) theories on ability, this study examined how children defined and assessed their own ability in running as they progressed from the fourth to eighth grade.
Method: 27 students (11 boys; 16 girls) were randomly selected from those participating in a longitudinal project on children's motivation and performance in running programs. They were individually interviewed while in grades 4-8. All interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim for analysis.
Analysis/Results: Inductive analysis and constant comparison were used to analyze what criteria the students used to judge their own ability in running; frequencies and percentages were computed to determine changes in students' criteria over time. Results indicated the students used the same criteria to assess their ability in running across the four years. The criteria were ability (e.g., I was able to run a lot), effort (e.g., I tried my best), social comparison (e.g., I was the first one done with all the running), and intra-personal comparison (e.g., I did more than I did last year). But changes were also observed. The most prominent change was that students increasingly used social comparison to assess their own ability as they got older.
Conclusions: This study adds to the research literature that though students used the same criteria to assess their ability in running over time, they became more socially comparative with age. Findings of the study have implications for teachers who wish to foster students' positive perceptions of their ability in PE.
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