The implementation of the Physical Education Assessment at the beginning of curriculum reform in Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, examinations play a dominant role in the development and application of the school curriculum (Morris, 1996). School assessment has become a relevant aspect of the learning process. The purposes of this study were firstly to evaluate the implementation of Physical Education (PE) assessment in Hong Kong and secondly to evaluate PE teachers’ perception of the effectiveness of the current PE assessment. The total sample size was 317 PE teachers, who were distributed in 205 secondary schools out of 477 secondary schools (43%) in Hong Kong. The questionnaire which used in this study was confirmative by a small group of Physical Education teachers in order to check the validity (Wiersma, 2000). The external reliability was also checked by Chan’s previous surveys (1999; 2000; 2002) which proved that the results were replicable and consistent. The findings showed that PE teachers (85.4%) considered that PE results should be counted towards the towards the year’s final academic results. However, over 50% of secondary schools did not include PE results in this way; the results were only shown as grades (52.4%), a mark (31.1%) and both marks and grades (16.5%). Nearly 90% of schools did not include comments on students’ progress or performance in the school PE result. There were 63.4% of PE teachers who considered that the teaching time for the PE programme (about 80 minutes per week) was insufficient. This created a barrier in the implementation of PE teaching and assessment. As the trend of accountability has arisen through the Hong Kong secondary school PE reform in 2000, PE teachers now need to face the curriculum change. In order to improve the current situation of the PE curriculum, solving the problems related to the subjective assessment approach should be one of the main targets for PE reform. Copyright © 2006 Common Ground, Wan Ka Chan, Kwok On Lau, Kim Wai Raymond Sum.