Jennifer L. Fisette

Are You Listening?: Adolescent Girls Voice How They Negotiate Self-Identified Barriers to Their Success and Survival in Physical Education.

Background: Limited research has been conducted on student voice with students in physical education. Accessing and responding to student voice are relevant for researchers and physical education teachers to develop physical education programs that are meaningful and have a sense of purpose to the students themselves. It is through listening to student voices that researchers and teachers might learn how students navigate power structures, formulated by adults, which typically dominate physical education curricula and exclude students from the process of curricular decision-making and implementation and, ultimately, ownership of their own learning and movement experiences. Purpose: This study explored how secondary-school girls, through their voices, identified and critiqued their self-identified barriers to their engagement in and enjoyment of physical education and navigated these barriers and the unequal power relations they encountered to thrive or survive in physical education. Participants and setting: Participants were seven 9th and 10th grade girls in a coeducational physical education class in a rural high school located in the northeast region of the USA. Data collection: Data were collected from the following sources: (a) focus group interviews, (b) formal interviews with the adolescent girls, (c) descriptive field notes of the girls’ physical education classes, and (d) informal conversations with the physical education teachers. Data analysis: Data analysis was conducted simultaneously with the data collection process throughout this study. Field notes were word-processed into narratives and the focus group and formal interviews were transcribed verbatim. The transcriptions and field notes were coded using content analysis and the constant comparative method. Findings: Interpretations include the participants’ self-identified barriers to their engagement in and enjoyment of physical education and their critique of these self-identified barriers and how they navigated these barriers and the unequal power relations they encountered within physical education. Girls’ self-identified barriers included ‘Proving themselves to the boys,’ ‘Girls are supposed to do girly things and boys are supposed to do boy-ee things,’ and ‘Theres a risk of being embarrassed.’ Through discourse and critical inquiry, the participants were able to voice their self-identified barriers and individual lived experiences. Although the participants experienced these barriers, they were able to embody their comfort and enjoyment by navigating their participation within particular contexts and situations to thrive or survive in physical education.

Revitalizing the physical education social-justice agenda in the global era: where do we go from here?

ABSTRACT Critical theorists have called attention to the intensification of diversity that is now occurring inside and outside of school, while critically engaging with the detrimental effects of globalization on equity, diversity, and social justice. Globalization presents new challenges to education and to issues of social justice. In this article, we argue that there is a need for scholars in the field of physical education to re-think and re-frame the social-justice agenda to address current inequalities produced by globalization. To support this argument, we first reflect on the impact of global neoliberalism on physical education; second, we discuss the ways in which, as a result of global neoliberalism, public health discourses have an “othering” effect on ethnically diverse young people; third, we propose a theoretical shift from a focus on equality to a focus on difference; and finally, we conclude with considerations for future research and curricula in school physical education.

‘If You Really Knew Me’ … I am empowered through action

In this paper, we argue for the importance of creating a context that allows students to explore their sense of ‘self’ and their embodied identities, specifically within a physical education context. We specifically explore how students’ mediated and embodied identities are ‘translated’, particularly as they engaged in activist research by become co-meaning makers and co-interpreters throughout the research process. The purpose of this study was to engage high school girls in collaborative activist research to explore how they made meaning of their mediated identities, how they translated these identities to their embodied sense of self and how that influenced their schooling experiences. Participants were three ninth grade girls from a coeducational class in a suburban high school located in the Midwest region of the USA. During the first phase of the study, data were collected from focus group interviews, media consumption logs and descriptive field notes from observations. In the second phase, participants created their own activist-based project. The transcriptions and field notes were coded using content analysis and the constant comparative method. Participants shed light on their media consumption and how this consumption influenced their interactions with others and their own embodied identities. Their media consumption led the girls to take action by developing a survey that was based on the television show entitled, If You Really Knew Me, to explore the challenges and issues the student body encountered that influence their mediated and embodied identities. Through this experience, the girls indicated that they felt a sense of empowerment by taking social action. Results offer insight into the girls’ lived experiences in physical education and high school, the girls’ experience and process in developing their projects, the outcomes of this school-wide action research project and how they translated their embodied identities.

PE Metrics: Background, Testing Theory, and Methods

New testing theories, concepts, and psychometric methods (e.g., item response theory, test equating, and item bank) developed during the past several decades have many advantages over previous theories and methods. In spite of their introduction to the field, they have not been fully accepted by physical educators. Further, the manner in which many assessments are developed and used in physical education has limitations, including isolated test development, weak or poor psychometric quality control, lack of evaluation frameworks, and failure to measure change or growth. To eliminate these shortcomings and meet the needs of standard-based assessment, a major national effort was undertaken to develop an item or assessment bank, called “PE Metrics,” for assessing the national content standards for physical education. After providing a brief introduction to the background of PE Metrics, this article will describe the nature of the testing theory, psychometric methods, and how they were used in the construction of PE Metrics. Constraints of developing such a system are acknowledged, and future directions in physical education assessments are outlined.

Development of PE metrics elementary assessments for national physical education standard 1

This article describes how assessments in PE Metrics were developed following six steps: (a) determining test blueprint, (b) writing assessment tasks and scoring rubrics, (c) establishing content validity, (d) piloting assessments, (e) conducting item analysis, and (f) modifying the assessments based on analysis and expert opinion. A task force, composed of researchers, measurement and evaluation experts, teacher educators, K–12 physical education teachers, and education administrators, was formulated. The task force then determined a test blueprint for Grades K, 2, and 5 and developed corresponding assessments to assess the standards. The content validity evidence was established by a panel of experts examining the degree to which the content of the assessments matched the content of the national standards, specifically Standard 1. A total of 30 assessments (Kindergarten = 8, Grade 2 = 11, and Grade 5 = 11) were developed. They were piloted to a total of 773 students (Kindergarten = 232, Grade 2 = 268, and Grade 5 = 273). Descriptive statistics (e.g., M, SD, frequency) were computed for each assessment. More than 50% of the means were between 2.2 and 2.8 (on a 4-point scoring rubric). Assessment responses were well distributed; only 2.2% had an SD of 0, which indicates that assessments were well developed. With some editorial changes, the assessments were ready for the final calibration of PE Metrics construction.

Assessment of Secondary School Students' Game Performance Related to Tactical Contexts

Abstract Certain limitations remain unaddressed when utilizing the Teaching Games for Understanding approach, suggesting the need for more research on authentic assessment of skill development and tactical awareness in order to guide the design of developmentally appropriate curriculum materials. This study investigated physical education students’ (n=19; age: 13.71 ± 0.4) game performance during an invasion game, specifically the relationship between their skill execution and decision-making ability. The purpose of the study was twofold: (a) to devise and implement a ‘game context’ approach to assess the game performance components and in doing so, (b) to provide information that could be used to design suitable learning progressions within tactical teaching approaches. Students’ game performance was videotaped, and measures of skill execution and decision-making were developed from observational analyses. Decision-making was measured at two levels: a) decision making restricted to the selection of technical-tactical skills (i.e., passing, moving with the ball, getting free, marking, tackling, double teaming and interception; and b) decisionmaking in the adaptation to the tactical contexts of the game. Participants played a 5 vs. 5 modified eight-minute team handball game. Participants scored significantly higher in penetrating-the-defense context adaptation than in keepingthe- ball context adaptation. Participants showed a higher efficiency in decision-making than in execution in most of the technical-tactical skills; including on-the-ball over off-the-ball decision-making, and in attack compared to defensive execution. The findings also revealed significant relationships between decision-making and skill execution in shooting, tackling and passing

“Beautiful You”: Creating Contexts for Students to Become Agents of Social Change

ABSTRACT The authors argue for creating a context within education where teachers can utilize critical pedagogical practices to explicate the hidden curriculum, explore students’ sense of self and embodied identities, and engage students to empower themselves to speak up and take action about issues of embodiment and their understanding of social inequalities within schools. They specifically explore how high school girls’ mediated and embodied identities were translated, particularly as they engaged in participatory activist research by becoming co–meaning makers and co-interpreters during the research process. During the first phase of the study, data were collected from focus group interviews and descriptive field notes from observations. In the second phase, participants created their own activist-based project. Participants shed light on the social issues they encountered in high school and how these experiences influenced their embodied identities, which led them to develop Beautiful You and thus become agents of social change.

Related Critical Psychometric Issues and Their Resolutions during Development of PE Metrics.

In addition to validity and reliability evidence, other psychometric qualities of the PE Metrics assessments needed to be examined. This article describes how those critical psychometric issues were addressed during the PE Metrics assessment bank construction. Specifically, issues included (a) number of items or assessments needed, (b) training protocol for required intra- and inter-rater objectivity, and (c) the development of a score scale. First, using a subsample of data from the PE Metrics study, in which students were assessed using four assessments, the impact of the number of assessments was examined. It was found that at least two assessments are needed when applying PE Metrics for the purpose of high stakes testing. Single individual assessments can still be used in teaching practice, but the results must be interpreted with caution. Second, with the training protocol developed for PE Metrics, satisfactory intra-rater objectivity can be achieved. When two or more raters are involved in rating, however, an additional monitoring protocol should be employed so that inter-rater objectivity can be monitored and controlled. Third, to help allow for a consistent interpretation and reporting of PE Metrics results, a score scale was developed. Other related issues, such as test fairness and setting performance standards, were discussed, and future directions concerning PE Metrics maintenance and continuing development were outlined.

PE Metrics: Assessing the National Standards: Article #2 in a 4-part series: Instructional Considerations for Implementing Student Assessments

StrAtegieS 33 the first article of the Pe Metrics series, Developing Quality Physical Education through Student Assessments (January/February 2009 Strategies issue) focused on the importance of assessing student learning in relation to NASPe’s content standards (NASPe, 2004). the article emphasized that unless students are appropriately assessed, it is impossible to accurately determine what they have learned and achieved as a result of physical education class. the physical education assessments recently published in PE Metrics: Assessing the National Standards, Standard 1: Elementary (2008) provide valid and reliable tools to measure student learning and inform teacher instruction. this second article of the Pe Metrics series focuses on explaining the formative and summative assessment processes and introducing different instructional considerations that teachers will need to contemplate in order to effectively implement the assessments.

The stigmatized physical educator

The purpose of this autoethnography is to challenge the traditional, hegemonic, able-bodied identity of a physical educator and to create a space for ‘non-traditional’ physical educators to speak up about their personal experiences and embodied identities. Specifically, I utilise a personal narrative approach in my attempt to address issues of embodiment, ‘the body’ and illness in relation to my teacher identity, with a particular focus on how I have navigated a spinal injury, partial paralysis and lower back surgeries as a physical education teacher educator. Throughout this article, I first explore how my teacher identity was initially centred on my athletic, able-bodied self as a young, naïve secondary physical education teacher. I then delve into how my teacher identity as a physical educator has been changed and altered due to an unexpected ‘illness’ and deteriorated physical conditions I have encountered over the past decade, causing me to question, challenge and critique my perceptions of my teacher identity in my altered and new ‘body’. I situate my teacher identity around Goffman’s (1963) theoretical concept of ‘stigma’, with a particular emphasis placed on the type of stigma associated with abominations of the body.