Students’ perceptions of a graduated scale used for self-assessment and peer-assessment  of written work in pre-service physical education teacher education (PETE)

Abstract

The aim of this study was to identify the perception of university students on Pre-service Teacher Education (PTE) courses on the importance and functionality of assessment criteria rubrics when undertaking written group assignments. Secondary objectives of the work included: analyzing the importance of having prior knowledge of the grading criteria for assignments that were to be assessed; identifying whether students had prior experience of this type of assessment instrument; discovering the students’ opinion on whether the rubric helped them complete the exercise and to do it better; and learning whether they intended to use this type of instrument in their future roles as teachers. The study was carried out within three PETE departments in Spanish universities. The same protocol was employed during the preparation and the formative and summative assessment of a group written document, combining self-assessment, group peer-assessment and tutor assessment using an ad-hoc designed instrument. Once the assignment was completed, a questionnaire was administered to all of the students involved and a sample was selected to carry out informal interviews. The results of the study indicate that: (a) prior knowledge of the grading criteria helped them to perform the task better; (b) there were significant differences in the students’ previous experiences of this type of assessment instrument, depending on the university where they studied; (c) students felt that using a rubric whilst undertaking a group assignment was very valuable; and (d) students indicated a high level of intention to use this type of instrument within their own future roles as teachers.