Exploring Students' Conception and Expectations of Achievement in Physical Education

Abstract

Achievement in a domain is normally defined by the experts within the curricula. This exploratory study reported student conception of achievement in physical education, attempting to address two questions: (1) what do students expect to achieve and (2) how do students view the achievement in physical education. Students (N = 48) purposefully selected from seven classes participated in the study. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from three sources: curriculum documents, observation, and cognitive interviews with a ranking task sheet (Willis & Schechter, 1997). Student rankings were analyzed descriptively. The interview, observation notes, and documents were analyzed using constant comparison (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Students reported multiple conceptions of achievement, and each achievement statement was ranked the highest by certain students. Overall, trying to stay in shape and having fun were rated the highest expected achievements by students in physical education. This finding provides insights on student conception of achievement yet creates a dilemma on the evaluation of achievement.

Keywords:

• learning achievement
• adolescent conception
• expectation
• cognitive interview

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their constructive comments.

Notes

¹All student names in this study were pseudonyms.