Abstract:

Introduction:
Assessment in Physical Education (PE) has undergone a period of development in recent years, trying to answer the main problems arise regarding how, when and what to assess. It must be noted that PE is not comparable to any other area of primary curriculum, and therefore different assessment must be carried out.
This paper aims at establishing a proposal for accurate assessment of basic motor skills, giving response to the main problems that evaluation in the area of PE is currently facing, all of which without leaving current legislation or the basic principles any evaluation should have. The proposal lies on a methodology based on observation with notational methodology to accurately give a comprehensive evaluation. To that end, video-analysis will be used as an observational assessment methodology that will focus on every evaluation criteria. With this type of evaluation, traditional evaluation based on purely quantitative assessment of motor skills, test and measurement is substituted by assessment that takes into account the qualitative process.
To test this proposal in the field, an experimental investigation was carried out, aiming at surpasse classical evaluation based on grade scales proportional to numerical outcomes. The proposed assessment of basic motor skills is focused specifically in the launch of mobile parts, paying attention to technique and learning. Among different track and field modalities, hammer throw was selected due to its particular technique which is not known in advance by any of the participants. A proper lightweight foam hammer, specially designed for students of that age was used to assure safety conditions. The study raised different learning objectives relating to technique learning and achievement, thus underestimating the component of distance achieved, typical of a stand-alone grading criteria in traditional evaluation.

Materials and methods:
The sample comprised a group of 69 students from Primary Education (6th grade) with no physical constraints. Average values were as follows: weight 43.41 kg, size 147.82 cm, BMI 19.63, which can be regarded as normal according to standard classification.
All sessions were recorded simultaneously by three cameras located in landmark positions that will capture the three analysis planes: sagittal, frontal and transverse. This distribution allows to analyze executions from different points of view and therefore to establish proper grading criteria for each student.
Once video recordings have been processed, the open-source video analysis software Kinovea was used to extract information, such as angles, distances or elevations. This outcome can be exported visually as an image or numerically to keep a register of students’ progression during the academic year.

Results:
Among all evaluation criteria set by researchers, some of them were of qualitative dichotomic as they answer whether or not a specific criteria has been awarded, such as position of body parts, spinnings or coordinate movements. The rest were quantitative outcomes regarding angles or absolute position within the throwing circle.

Conclusions:
This paper has showed that a novel methodology can be applied to assess complex motor skills such as hammer throw in students of primary education. Employing basic notational skills, this methodology uses video analysis to extract all information to set a rubric of evaluation criteria based on technique rather than on absolute mark.

Keywords:

Assessment, video, physical education, notation.