Classroom teachers' accuracy in observing students' motor performance

Graduation date: 1985The purpose of this study was to examine how accurate classroom\ud teachers' observations are for identifying high and low motor\ud performances.\ud In order to assess teacher accuracy in rating motor performance,\ud an analysis was conducted on students' scores on the Short Form of\ud the Bruininks - Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency between those who\ud were rated high as compared to those who were rated low in motor\ud performance as determined by a teacher rating scale.\ud Ninety-one children were randomly selected from Fairplay\ud Elementary School in the Corvallis, Oregon school district to serve\ud as subjects in the study. The subjects ranged in age from 6 to 11\ud years. There were 44 female and 47 male subjects. Four classroom\ud teachers participated in the study.\ud Subjects were initially observed by their classroom teachers and\ud rated on six motor performance tasks on a rating scale. On the basis of the teachers' ratings, the subjects were placed into upper and\ud lower quartile groups. Those subjects who scored in the upper and\ud lower quartiles on the rating scale were administered the Short Form\ud of the Bruininks - Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOT-S).\ud Subjects were observed by their classroom teachers on a Monday\ud and formally tested by 10 different volunteer testers on the\ud following Thursday. Subjects were tested one class at a time, taking\ud approximately one half-hour for 19-30 children. The test site was\ud set up with 10 stations and subjects rotated around to each station\ud until all items were completed. The order in which the children were\ud assigned a station was randomly decided.\ud The two-tailed t statistic was utilized to determine if there\ud was a significant difference between standard mean scores for upper\ud and lower quartile performances on the BOT-S. The results of the\ud data analysis indicated a significant difference between upper and\ud lower quartile performances. The mean score for upper quartile\ud performance (63.76) was significantly higher than the mean score for\ud the lower quartile performance (54.08) at the .05 level. The\ud obtained t value of 3.35 exceeded the tabled value of 2.01 at the .05\ud level of confidence.\ud While these results were significant at the .05 level, a degree\ud of caution must be used when interpreting the data. The degree of\ud variance within the high group was 65.77 whereas the degree of\ud variance within the low group was 139.03. The results suggest that classroom teachers are more accurate in observing high motor\ud performances than they are in observing low motor performances