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Abstract
Recent state and federal legislations on educational accountability push evaluation and grading to the frontline. This study examined students’ perspectives of grading in physical education. The participants included students (N = 39) from two middle schools. Data were collected through observation, student profile grading sheets and interviews. The grading sheet profiled athletic, participative, popular, knowledgeable and well-behaving students, respectively. Participants were asked to grade the profiles and were interviewed immediately thereafter. The profiles’ grades were analyzed descriptively. The interview data and observation notes were analyzed using constant comparison. Students voiced that being athletic or popular should not earn the highest grade in physical education; they favored the participative, knowledgeable and behaving profiles. A profile analysis showed that the latter three profiles earned significantly higher average grades than the athletic and popular ones (p < .05). Overall, students assigned relatively high grades for all the profiles, from a self-endorsing perspective. Student perspectives of grading are not completely consistent with the official standards or their own conception of achievement in physical education, which are likely shared by their teachers. These findings have implications for evaluation and grading in physical education.
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