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

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.

Effect of Teaching Methods on Motor Efficiency, Perceptions and Awareness in Children

“…According to Gehris et al [ 19 ], success in movement tasks strengthens children’s self-confidence, just as movement experiences help children develop social skills. This must be undertaken by the instructor, who must organise the learning experiences in the best possible way [ 32 ], working not only on the motor aspect but also on the social aspect. Knowing how to move easily helps children acquire greater emotional security in everyday contexts, as does knowing how to interact with other people.…”

The Role of Parental Involvement in Youth Sport Experience: Perceived and Desired Behavior by Male Soccer Players

“…Moreover, in order to develop an effective strategy for a positive parental involvement, it is advisable an approach that would combine and integrate the action of sport educators with sport psychologists in non-formal contexts (such as recreational teams), where most of sport activities have place. In this perspective, it should be underlined the importance of the presence of a sport educator (i.e., a teacher), possibly by reconceptualizing the figure of the coach who must have several fundamental interrelated competences [60,61].…”

Outdoor movement education in primary school during COVID-19 pandemic in the synthetic perceptions of primary school university training student

“…The definition of core curricula (D'Elia 2019ab, Invernizzi et al, 2020) to teach physical education in the degree courses where educators and teachers are trained arises from the need for sensitize future teachers to a more active and experiential teaching that focuses on body and movement (D'Elia et al, 2020, Raiola 2011, 2013, considering them the centre of the teaching and learning process (Raiola, 2017), as well as placing future teachers in the conditions to adequately teach physical education in the primary school. Physical activity-related training and resources provided to primary school teachers appears to be very important: if future teachers training includes adequate focus on physical activity they will be better disposed to improve children physical activity (qualitative and quantitative) levels.…”