Assessing Rolling Abilities in Primary School Children: Physical Education Specialists vs. Generalists.

Gaetano Raiola,Pietro Luigi Invernizzi,Dario Colella,Andrea Bosio,Gabriele Signorini,Raffaele Scurati

doi:10.3390/ijerph17238803

Abstract

Teaching physical education requires competencies to conduct the classes and to assess the motor skills of practitioners. Specialists (physical education professionals) and generalists (primary school teachers) differently experienced motor tasks during their academic education. This study aimed to compare the teachers’ ability in assessing the children’s forward and backward rolls from the analysis of the reliability of an evaluation grid of rolling abilities (Information Scale for Agility on the Soil, InfoSAS), which was investigated in a first study with teachers. A second study in young children explored the responsiveness of the InfoSAS to discriminate by skill level or by training effects. When administered by specialists, the InfoSAS resulted in being reliable (forward: p = 0.087 and p = 0.908; backward: p = 0.926 and p = 0.910; intra- and inter-rater reliability, respectively) and responsive in detecting differences due to expertise (gymnasts vs. primary school children; forward: p = 0.003, backward: p = 0.016) or improvements after specific training in rolling (pre- vs. post-children’s training; forward: p = 0.005, backward: p = 0.001). The results support the conclusion that specialists exhibit higher competence than generalists, which allows proper application of the InfoSAS, possibly because of the practice of skills and reflective teaching styles in physical activity they experienced, along with their academic education in sport sciences.

Highlights

Competence is a pivotal concept of the teaching process at any school level
Scale for Agility on the Soil, InfoSAS) and its suitability to be used by both generalist and specialist professionals to evaluate forward and backward rolls was assessed in a first study, while a second study involving two groups of young children served to confirm the responsiveness of the InfoSAS
As SPE comparatively scored in the repeated evaluations, the intra-rater reliability was confirmed in both forward and backward rolling (p > 0.05), and the same was for GEN, but only in backward rolling (p > 0.05)

Summary

Introduction

Competence is a pivotal concept of the teaching process at any school level. It can be defined as the individual capacity/ability to deal with job, study, professional, or personal requirements by applying all knowledge and skills previously acquired in formal, non-formal, and informal learning contests [1]. Knowledge has to be turned into practice, which moves the focus of the teachers’ training from individual knowledge to operative skills. Theory and practice are not independent features of teaching competence; they have to be integrated to connect “knowledge”, “know-how”, and “know how to make to-do” among them. Attention should be given to the working and learning methods the teachers must manage. The focus of the teachers’ training should

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Conclusion