Kevin Lorson

Age and gender differences in adolescent and adult overarm throwing.

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to examine age and gender differences in throwing performance across an underexplored portion of the lifespan: middle adolescents (14–17 years old), young adults (18–25 years old), and adults (35–55 years old). Method: Throwing performance was assessed using the body component levels from Robertons developmental sequences for force and ball velocity that were recorded by a radar gun. Participants in each age group performed between 5 to 10 forceful overhand throws toward a target approximately 15 m to 20 m from the thrower. A Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney Test was used to determine gender differences and a Wilcoxon-Signed Ranks Test was used to determine age-group differences for each component. Gender and age-group differences in ball speed were determined by a 3 (age group) × 2 (gender) factorial analysis of variance with follow-up post-hoc tests. Results: Young-adult men had higher body component levels and ball speed compared with the adolescent boys and adult men. Female age-group differences existed only for humerus action between young-adult and adult groups and for ball speed between young-adult and adolescent groups. Gender differences (p < .01) existed in component levels for the adolescent and young-adult groups, but not the adult groups. Gender differences in ball speed (p < .001) existed within each age group. Conclusion: Although these data were cross-sectional, the regressive developmental changes observed and the narrowing gender gap may eventually provide insight related to the relationships among motor skill competence, physical fitness, and physical activity across the lifespan.

Using Goal-Directed Reflection to Make Reflection More Meaningful

JOPERD • Volume 78 No. 4 • April 2007 T he role of a physical education teacher education (PETE) program is to develop high-quality teachers, and quality refl ection lies at the heart of good teaching. The National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) beginning teacher standards (2003) suggest that a good refl ective cycle involves a description of teaching, a critique of teaching performance, and the setting of teaching goals in order to produce thoughtful teachers who continue to develop their craft throughout their career. Different refl ective teaching strategies—such as writings, observation logs, action research, curriculum inquiries, and supervisory approaches—have been used to develop thoughtful and refl ective physical education teachers (Tsangaridou & Siedentop, 1995). Despite this, many teacher educators fi nd it diffi cult to prompt and encourage their teacher candidates to engage in a thoughtful refl ective cycle about their teaching. Common concerns voiced by teacher educators are that teacher candidates only describe the day’s events, do not connect their teaching behaviors to student responses, fail to identify the critical aspects of a teaching situation, and are unable to prioritize personal teaching goals. Goal-directed refl ection (GDR) is another refl ective strategy that aims to address these concerns and link systematic supervision with refl ection and goal-setting. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the GDR cycle, to explain how GDR fi ts within a PETE program that uses a systematic model of supervision and is aligned with the Praxis III/Pathwise domains, and to describe how the GDR process can be used as one component to meet standard eight (“Understand the importance of being a refl ective practitioner and its contribution to overall professional development and actively seek opportunities to sustain professional growth”) of the beginning teacher standards (NASPE, 2003, p. 17). This article will (1) outline the theoretical framework of a PETE program that uses systematic supervision and GDR; (2) provide an overview of the purposes and use of GDR; (3) discuss the role of the teacher candidate (TC), mentor teacher (MT), and university supervisor (US) in the GDR process; (4) identify TC and programmatic outcomes; and (5) describe stories of successes and struggles in implementing GDR. It should be noted that GDR also has the potential to be used with inservice physical educators in professional development plans, although that is not the focus of this article.

Making Teacher Work Samples “Work” for Accreditation

T he purpose of a teacher education program is to develop preservice teachers into knowledgeable and skilled professionals who have a positive impact on student learning. Quality teaching produces student learning, thus the product of a quality teacher education program is a teacher candidate who has a positive effect on student learning. The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) review process evaluates the quality of a teacher education program. To do this, teacher education programs provide evidence of quality through an assessment system that demonstrates that teacher candidates are prepared to become effective teachers who promote student learning. The NCATE accreditation process has periodically modified and changed the evidence necessary to demonstrate that programs are successfully developing preservice teachers (Butler, 2006). The accreditation process has steadily shifted from an emphasis on the process of educating preservice teachers through courses aligned with standards and the results from knowledge tests, to its current focus on the product of quality teaching. No longer is it enough to say that teacher candidates have the knowledge and skills; they must demonstrate their effectiveness by applying their knowledge, skills, and dispositions to implement meaningful experiences that contribute to student learning (Hacker, 2006). Teacher work samples (TWS) are a key assessment tool that teacher preparation programs can use to demonstrate the effectiveness of teacher candidates and to provide evidence toward accountability requirements. Accreditation by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) and NCATE is a two-part process comprising a unit review and a program review. The importance of an effective TWS assessment is that it provides evidence to meet both unit and program standards. This article focuses primarily on addressing the contribution of TWS to NASPE program accreditation, but it will also address aspects of NCATE unit accreditation.

Influence of critical cues and task constraints on overarm throwing performance in elementary age children.

The purpose of the study was to examine the influence of critical cues and task constraints on body-component levels and maximum ball velocity. 81 children (M age = 97.8 mo.) were systematically assigned to one of four strategies. Participants completed 15 throws during each of 4 practice sessions. Differences between groups were found for body-component developmental levels and ball velocity. The differences indicate prompts to throw the ball hard and fast impact ball velocity and body-components by developmental levels. Critical cues also appear to be a useful tool to improve the step component. Results suggest the use of forceful throwing tasks, cues, and velocity feedback can be useful tools to influence throwing performance.

Overarm Throwing Velocity of High-School-Age Boys and Girls

Collecting accurate and reliable information is essential to making any evidence-based decision. While great efforts have been made in developing frameworks and procedures for evaluating evidence, how to design an effective assessment and/or study to collect evidence has often been overlooked. This presentation is to introduce Evidence-Centered Assessment Design (ECD), a method to construct assessment in terms of evidentiary arguments. Developed by Mislevy (1994) and his colleagues at ETS, ECD was developed based on advances in evidentiary reasoning (Schum, 1994) and statistical modeling (Gelman et al., 1995). ECD includes six models: Student, evidence, task, assembly, presentation and delivery, with the first three acting as the core. The student model focuses on what knowledge, skills, or other attributes should be assessed; the evidence model focuses on what behaviors or performances should reveal those constructs and what are the connections; and finally, the task model focuses on what tasks or situations should elicit those behaviors. Very recently, a four-part framework has been proposed to enhance the design and delivery of assessment systems based ECD, including Activity Selection, Presentation, Response Processing, and Summary Scoring (Almond et al., 2002). Two “actors” interacting with the framework are test administrators and takers. ECD is based on three premises: (a) An assessment must build around important knowledge/attribute in the domain of interest, and an understanding of how that knowledge/attribute is acquired and put to use; (b) The chain of reasoning from what test takers say and do in assessments to inference about what they know, can do, or should do next, must be based on the principles of evidentiary reasoning; and (c) Purpose must be the driving force behind design decisions, which reflect constrains, resources and conditions of use (Mislevy et al., 2003). The connections between ECD and conventional test/assessment construction, as well as to traditional psychometric evidence (e.g., validity and reliability), will be described in detail. Examples on how to construct lowand high-stakes ECD assessments and apply ECD for test accommodations will be illustrated.