Background/Purpose Recent state and federal legislations on educational accountability push teachers to look more into grading. This study explored student conception of grade in physical education attempting to address two questions: How do students view grading in physical education? What do students expect physical education to be graded on?
Method The chosen participants included students (N=39, 21 females) from two middle schools. Data were collected through observation, grading sheet, and cognitive interviews (Willis & Schechter, 1997). The grading sheet profiled five athletic, participative, popular, knowledgeable, and behaving students, respectively. Participants were asked to grade the profiles in physical education and were interviewed immediately after. The profiles' grades were analyzed descriptively. The interview data and observation notes were analyzed using constant comparison (Strauss & Corbin, 1998).
Analysis/Results The five student profiles on average received from 84.90 (SD=9.93) to 93.21 (SD=5.62). Students voiced that being athletic or popular should not earn the highest grade in physical education; they favored the participative, knowledgeable, and behaving profiles. Analysis of variance showed that the latter three profiles earned significantly higher grade than the athletic and popular ones (F=19.40, df=4, MS=1149.77, p<.01).
Conclusions Students overall assigned relatively high grades for all the profiles, consistent with the general view that physical education is the easiest subject in school (Stodolsky et al., 1991). Students emphasized that participation, class behavior, and knowledge should be valued higher than popularity or athleticism for grading. This finding has a significant implication for assessing and grading in physical education.
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