Validating the Volleyball Common Content Knowledge Test

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to create a valid and reliable volleyball common content knowledge (VB-CCK) test in secondary physical education contexts in the United States. Two physical education teacher educators served as content experts and developed test items for the VB-CCK test. We then established content validity with a group of inservice teachers and determined face validity with preservice teachers. The Rasch model was used in data analysis. The standardized residual contrasts for the items loaded in the range of -.4 to .4, confirming the test was unidimensional and measured VB-CCK. Both infit mean-square residuals and outfit mean-square residuals were within the criterion range of .5 to 1.5 (infit = .8 to 1.1; outfit = .8 to 1.5), which showed the range of the question difficulties matched the respondents’ knowledge levels. The item separation index was 3.46 (reliability = .92; an excellent level) and the person separation index was 1.55 (reliability = .71; an acceptable level). The results provided evidence of the range of question difficulties and respondents’ knowledge levels. The Wright Map added additional evidence that the 40 questions were well distributed from easy to difficult levels and could discriminate different knowledge levels of preservice teachers’ VB-CCK. The study was successful in developing a valid and reliable instrument for PETE programs to assess secondary VB-CCK of their preservice teachers. We propose future CCK studies for both elementary content and secondary content.