Nastava i Vaspitanje (Jan 2019)
The attitudes of physical education teachers towards the grading of students
Abstract
Physical education instruction as a specific context entails a certain system of assessment which is used to establish the level and pace of progress of students' performance and development as well as their dedication, which represents a special challenge for teachers in terms of grading. Our research aimed to examine teachers' attitudes to grading students in physical education instruction. The sample comprised 60 physical education teachers in primary and secondary schools (22 female and 38 male). All data were processed using basic descriptive statistics, that is, the Mann-Whitney U test. The results of the study suggest that the majority of physical education teachers regard numerical assessment in their subject as the most objective form of assessment. This is especially true of male teachers, a higher percentage of whom agreed with the statement relative to their female colleagues. Physical education teachers with more years of service differ from their younger colleagues in the level of support for numerical assessment, displaying significantly greater reservations about numerical assessment than their younger colleagues. We believe that it would be useful to implement new trends in grading, or, more precisely, in assessing students' knowledge, skills and dedication in the context of physical education, moving towards different forms of "integrated assessment".
