Authenticity in Physical Education

by Baker, Scott Kendall.

This self-study focused on how a physical education teacher worked to develop and enact four authentic assessment tasks with his 7th grade physical education students. The tasks were invented using standards for authentic assessment developed by the Center for Organization and Restructuring of Schools as a guide. Authenticity is explored over the course of a school year through the invention of the tasks, the enactment of the tasks, and the reactions and memories of eight students to the tasks. The study found that students often did not demonstrate a deep understanding of the content when completing the tasks or during the interviews. While decisions were made by the teacher in order to incorporate each of the standards for authentic assessment into the tasks, those standards related to value beyond school were most difficult to satisfy. A tension was described by the teacher between the time in cognitive activities and the time in physical activities. However, students did not describe this tension. 10