Large-scale cognitive evaluation of content for Physical Education in school

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. Physical Education in school enables contextualization of physical exercisewith themes related to student learning objectives for physical sports, as well as socio-affective andcognitive aspects. However, for this last point, there is a lack of a reference matrix for large scalecognitive evaluation which allows for identification of students’ knowledge in relation to the contentof Physical Education. Therefore, this study aims to develop and validate a reference matrix(model) for large scale cognitive evaluation of physical education in school. METHOD. The matrixwas developed based on the learning objectives of the Curriculum Standards of Physical Educationfor Elementary School. A total of 232 teachers and researchers of Physical Education in ElementarySchool (6th to 9th grade) from 5 regions of Brazil participated in the study, which was conductedthrough a questionnaire, with closed questions and answers and 38 items on a scale. Of the participants,57.3% were Master’s Degree or PhD holders and 42.7% were graduates and specialists.RESULTS. We performed exploratory factor analysis and the results show three factors that wereextracted, namely: 1) Socio-cultural Dimension of Body Practices, 2) Bio-Functional Dimensionof Physical Activity, and 3) Technical Dimension of Competitive Sports. The sample was adequatefor the study (KMO = 0.923, χ² = 7644.440. gl = 703, p ≤ 0.001), satisfactory and explicable totalvariance was obtained (57.2%) and the internal consistency of the items in these three dimensionswas above 0.90, suggesting the accuracy of the results. DISCUSSION. We consider the referencematrix suitable for use as a tool to provide teachers and researchers with indicative dimensions forlarge-scale cognitive evaluation of the content of Physical Education in Elementary School.