Formative assessment is recognized in the world as an effective way of teaching and learning, through which pupils acquire more lasting and higher quality knowledge, develop the ability of self-regulated learning and become more successful, more self-confident and motivated for work. In Slovenia, formative assessment is spread among teachers mainly through innovation projects developed by the National Education Institute Slovenia.
In the theoretical part of the master's thesis we presented the origin and development of formative assessment and described three different models and their elements. We pointed out the strong connection between formative assessment and Physical Education (PE) and presented the existing foreign research in the field of PE, which focused on the effects of formative assessment and the difficulties of teachers in introducing this method of teaching. We pointed out the lack of Slovenian literature, research, examples from practice and other information that would link Physical Education and formative assessment.
In the empirical part, we investigated the frequency of the use of formative assessment in PE at the grade level 1 through 5. In the quantitative research, we determined whether there are differences between the frequency of use of formative assessment in PE and other subjects and what the relationship is between the frequency of use and the teacher's self-assessment of competencies for the teaching of each subject. We were trying to find out how this is influenced by the age of the pupils and by the number of years of the teacher's experience he/she has in the field of formative assessment. We wanted to find out what do teachers need to use formative assessment in PE more often.
The research provided an insight into the current situation and highlighted the challenges that teachers face in the implementation of formative assessment in PE. The results showed that teachers use formative assessment in PE on average occasionally or frequently. According to the frequency of use of formative assessment, Physical Education ranks 6th on the scale of ten subjects. We found out that the frequency of use of formative assessment in PE gradually increases with the age of pupils and with the years of teacher’s experience, and its connection with the self-assessment of competencies can be detected in only three subjects. The challenges that teachers face in introducing formative assessment into PE, are mostly solvable at the level of school; they want to have more time for PE, they wish they had the presence of another teacher, better conditions and more knowledge and concrete examples from practice. In order to encourage teachers to use formative assessment in PE even more often, we have prepared six initiatives or suggestions that would overcome at least some of the obstacles and enable pupils to acquire quality and lasting knowledge in Physical Education.
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