Connotations given to assessment by future Physical Education teachers in their first university year on-site

Abstract

Knowledge that provides better opportunities for assessment literacy in Physical Education is key and intrinsic to initial teacher training. This is particularly important if the aim is to construct new paradigms in the training process and in the way of conceiving assessment in order to have a positive impact on the post- COVID-19 pandemic school population. The foregoing poses a challenge for the educational institutions due to the different coexisting perspectives on assessment in the educational system. This study aims at describing the connotations given to assessment by future Physical Education teachers in the context of their return to face-to-face lessons after their first year of academic training during the pandemic. For the empirical work an instrumental case study was conducted with the voluntary participation of 76 future teachers who were selected by purposive, disposition sampling. For the collection of data, a verbal association technique and a paper questionnaire were used. The qualitative and quantitative analysis is summarized in 15 labels. Those referring to Formative Assessment and Summative Assessment partially match Feedback, Self-assessment and Co-assessment labels. Students appear as protagonists in peer assessment and there is room for sharing emotions. We can conclude that future Physical Education teachers may look beyond technical rationality if attention is given to the context, and to specific elements and goals according to the expectations of the educational system.

Key words: teaching-learning; physical education; teacher training; assessment literacy; formative assessment; self-assessment; peer-assessment; feedback.