CLAIRE - The teaching and assessment of the content and cognitive domains of two areas of physical activities for examined physical education

Abstract

The introduction of assessments and examinations in Physical Education led to a shift from a recreational to an educational ideological base in the subject (Carroll, 1994). This resulted in the development of modes of assessment of the practical coursework for GCSE and ‘A’ level PE and Sport Studies that challenged the principles of validity and reliability of assessments. Further to this, teaching the content and cognitive domains (Bloom’s taxonomy) of the practical coursework in the gym and class-based environments, as suggested by the examiners (MEG, 1993) still resulted in unsatisfactory learning outcomes. This led to a study which investigated the teaching of an athletic type and a game type activity to high school students (16-18) in three environments, practice-based classes (n=32), practice-based classes with discussions of a handout at the end of each session (n=27), and class-based sessions (n=38). The teachers’ and pupils behaviours of the three experimental teaching units (ETUs) were analysed using the systematic observation technique CAFIAS. A second study examined the impact of the teaching environments on the assessment of the content (techniques, tactics and rules) and cognitive (knowledge and comprehension, application and analysis, and synthesis and evaluation) coursework of the two activities using an unseen written paper with diagrams and a video based unseen written paper.

The first study showed that the time spent on content emphasis was higher in the class-based ETUs, and that more time was spent on giving direction in the practice-based sessions. The class-based sessions provided more opportunities for teachers and students to communicate verbally. From the second study, ANOVA and MANOVA (repeated measures) procedures revealed statistically significant scores for all teaching environments (p

Date of Award	2000
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Kent/Canterbury Christ Church University