Evaluation of basic motor competencies in primary school in Luxembourg

An objective of physical education (PE) is supporting students’ positive motor development. Therefore, it is indispensable for them to be in command of the necessary basic motor competencies (in German: Motorische Basiskompetenzen; MOBAK) as the prerequisites to be able to participate in the culture of human movement. For the implementation of the MOBAK approach in Luxembourg (MOBAK-LUX), we developed the test instruments MOBAK-LUX-PS for preschoolers, MOBAK-LUX-1 for first graders, MOBAK-LUX-3 for third graders and MOBAK-LUX-5 for fifth graders. These motor tests are conducted on a voluntary basis by interested schools and teachers at the beginning of each school year. In general, about one third of students in the different class levels have support needs in at least one area of basic motor competence. The support needs are prevalent mostly in the area object control and girls generally have lower results than boys, especially in object control.


Intr Introduction oduction
One major objective of physical education (PE) as a school subject is supporting students' positive motor development and physical literacy. Therefore, it is indispensable for them to be in command of the necessary basic motor competencies (in German: Motorische Basiskompetenzen; MOBAK) to be able to participate in the culture of human movement, play and sports in the sense of cultural participation . When it comes to the assessment and monitoring of respective motor competencies, the existence of suitable test instruments has gained increasingly relevance in relation to the implementation of standards in educational systems. Given that the topic of test tasks is of primordial importance for teachers in relation to their diagnostic competence, adequate test instruments disposing of curricular validity are necessary as a prerequisite for educational testing (Heck & Scheuer, 2019). Such test instruments should help teachers gain more relevant information about students' competencies and determine their respective motor competence profile, in order to support them on the way to more individualized learning. Furthermore, the corresponding test instruments can be implemented within the framework of educational monitoring, with the objective of making students' performance scores comparable between schools, regions or student groups, as well as to identify potential risk populations with low motor competencies on a regional or national level.
In previous studies, the MOBAK approach to assess basic motor competencies has been identified as appropriate to follow in developing corresponding test instruments for different age respectively grade levels (e.g. . In this sense, basic motor competencies, defined as a prerequisite for active participation in the culture of movement, play, and sports, express a level of minimal requirements in the form of minimum standards. They are operationalized as observable performances of movement-related activities that we refer to as basic motor qualifications formulated as can-do statements (like e.g. "can balance", "can throw" or "can catch") to be achieved by all students of a certain age level in a certain cultural context. Basic motor qualifications are context-specific and oriented towards functionality and respective test items (like e.g. balancing over a bench, performing a forward roll on a flat mat or catching a ball thrown against a wall), assess the mastery of motor skills in predefined situations, in opposition to other motor test Actes de la 11ème Biennale de l' ARIS : Former des citoyens physiquement éduqués. Axe 2 -Vers une éducation physique de qualité, 10.25518/sepaps20.323 323/1 concepts based on motor abilities or motor skills . Thus, basic motor competencies are (1) dispositions or latent constructs; (2) not measured directly, but recorded by the presence of basic motor qualifications; (3) product-oriented in the form of the successful solution of a given problem situation; and (4) based on the expected learning outcomes as formulated in the curriculum .
For the purpose of pedagogical diagnosis (identification of students with low or high basic motor competencies) and educational monitoring (identification of risk populations with low basic motor competence levels and quality management by feedback to the school system on the school and system level), we designed and validated test instruments for assessing the basic motor competencies of primary school students in Luxembourg: MOBAK-LUX-PS (Scheuer, 2018a) for preschoolers; MOBAK-LUX-1 (Scheuer, 2016a) for first graders; MOBAK-LUX-3 (Scheuer, 2016b) for third graders; and MOBAK-LUX-5 (Scheuer, 2018b) for fifth graders. In cooperation with the Luxembourgish Ministry of Education, these motor test series are conducted on a voluntary basis by interested schools and teachers at the beginning of each school year.
In the following, the implementation of MOBAK-LUX in Luxembourg and selected results of the testing in recent years will be presented.

Methods Methods
The MOB The MOBAK AK-L -LU UX t X test instruments est instruments All four test instruments consist of items in the four test dimensions "locomotion", "object control", "moving in water" and "object locomotion" (MOBAK-LUX-PS: 15 test items; MOBAK-LUX-1: 16 test items; MOBAK-LUX-3: 16 test items; MOBAK-LUX-5: 15 test items; table 1). The final composition of each test instrument results from a much larger selection of possible test items that were developed and discussed in the context of several expert discussions on the basis of normative pedagogical considerations. This process of developing the test items in line with curricular circumstances, related in our case to the minimum standards for PE in primary school in Luxembourg, may be understood as a design step helping to maintain curricular validity and content validity. As these standards include general competencies and qualifications that are also embedded in other curricula, we are confident that the MOBAK-LUX test instruments possess a high content validity for the curricula of other countries as well.
In our case, the MOBAK-LUX item pools used as measurement tools were defined on two levels: mastery of Level 1 as a minimum standard which should be achieved by all students, and mastery of Level 2 as an advanced level, including additional difficulty in the form of a more complex task or the execution of the task under more difficult conditions . Students who do not pass Level 1 of a MOBAK-LUX test task have deficiencies in the respective basic motor qualification. Thus, a MOBAK-LUX test item is ordinally scaled (0, 1 and 2).
Evaluation of basic motor competencies in primary school in Luxembourg 323/2 T Support needs in basic mot Support needs in basic motor compet or competencies encies Students who are not in command of certain basic motor qualifications in a certain domain of basic motor competence (e.g. "locomotion", "object-control") are deficient in this domain and thus might encounter difficulties as they progress through school. Moreover, their participation in the sports, play, and movement culture in society is potentially in danger. In order to identify respective students, the following definition of low basic motor competence based on a normative approach is applied: 1. Students who pass less than two thirds of the Level 1 tasks in a test/competence area, have not achieved the minimal requirements and support is needed. Thus, they should practice specifically in this competence area ; Looking at the results in first grade between 2016 and 2018 (MOBAK-LUX-1), the incidence of support needs in at least one of the four competence areas is even higher: 31.3-48.4%. In 2017, the differences between girls and boys when it comes to the general results (44.4% vs. 34.3%) and the "object control" results respectively (34.9% vs. 21.7%) are very similar to those in grade three.
In summary, the following results can be observed: about one third of students in the different class levels have support needs in at least one area of basic motor competence; these support needs are prevalent mostly in the competence area "object control"; girls generally have lower results than boys, especially in the competence area "object control".

Conclusion Conclusion
In recent years, many school classes in Luxembourg have participated on a voluntary base in the MOBAK-LUX surveys.
The increasing interest shows that the implementation of competence-oriented test tasks has found acceptance amongst teachers and helps them to identify students with support needs in certain areas of motor competence.
Accordingly, the annual MOBAK-LUX testing will be linked in the future as an additional, optional module to the national educational monitoring surveys existing for mathematics, German, and French languages, undertaken by the Luxembourgish Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET) of the University of Luxembourg. Furthermore, a MOBAK support framework based on support measures on school and classroom level for students with different motor competence levels has been developed by the University of Luxembourg and is currently being implemented by the Luxembourgish Ministry of Education on a national level.
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