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Study Guide

Field 076: Physical Education

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Sample Selected-Response Questions

Competency 0001 
Individual Growth and Development

1. In dance and personal performance sports (e.g., martial arts), the development of skilled performance depends in large part on a participant's ability to use kinesthetic awareness to move body parts through space efficiently and elegantly. Kinesthetic awareness is derived primarily from sensory information received from:

  1. visual clues noticed by the participant while moving.
  2. receptors in the participant's muscles, tendons, and joints.
  3. auditory signals heard by the participant while moving.
  4. mental imagery committed to memory by the participant.
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B. This item requires examinees to identify principles and components of perceptual-motor abilities (i.e., visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic) and their development and relationship to motor movement. When the human body moves, nerve endings in the muscles, tendons, and joints transmit sensory input to the brain, which provides awareness of body position and where the body and body parts are in space. This physical sense, called kinesthetic awareness, enables safe, efficient, and confident movement.

Competency 0001 
Individual Growth and Development

2. In the typical sequence of motor development, students acquire and refine gross-motor skills as their balance and coordination improves. Which skill is the most start italicsadvancedend italics gross-motor skill that six-year-old students could be expected to demonstrate?

  1. kicking a stationary ball to a peer
  2. jumping rope individually
  3. changing pathways while running
  4. throwing a ball underhand
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Correct Response: B. This item requires examinees to analyze critical elements and sequencing of motor skills development. Jumping rope is a complex motor skill that requires children to coordinate and synchronize two gross-motor movement patterns—one in the upper body and one in the lower body—in a continuous skill. This ability to swing the rope rhythmically and jump at the appropriate time and height tends to develop later in childhood than the abilities required for the other skills listed. By the age of five or six, children can usually turn a jump rope and jump several times in a row.

Competency 0002 
Health-Related Fitness

3. Which strategy best illustrates an appropriate application of the fitness training principle of progressive overload in the context of a student's goal of improving cardiorespiratory endurance?

  1. The student warms up the same muscle groups that will be used in the main endurance workout with a brief, low-intensity activity.
  2. Before beginning endurance training workouts, the student engages in dynamic stretching of major muscles to promote enhanced joint range of motion.
  3. The student periodically varies the type of endurance training performed, and increases the duration and intensity of workouts in small increments over time.
  4. The student goes well beyond a comfortable level during endurance training to produce physical discomfort, and then adjusts the workout to minimize the discomfort.
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Correct Response: C. This item requires examinees to apply principles of physical condition and training (e.g., frequency, intensity, type, duration, progressive overload, specificity) and types of training approaches and conditioning programs. The principle of overload states that, to improve fitness levels, a body system must be stressed beyond the level of work that it is accustomed to by increasing the duration or intensity of regular workouts. Consistent stress, or overload, causes a physiological adaptation to occur in the body that is expressed as an increased level of cardiorespiratory fitness and/or strength. Increases in stress loads should be small and progressive to avoid physical discomfort and possible injury, and to ensure safety.

Competency 0002 
Health-Related Fitness

4. In general, adolescent students who are physically active on a regular basis derive physiological health benefits that adolescent students who are sedentary do not. Moderate to vigorous physical activity allows the active adolescents to more readily:

  1. develop and grow new muscle fibers.
  2. eliminate the buildup of lactic acid around muscle tissues.
  3. expend fat stores in addition to glycogen to fuel muscle actions.
  4. reduce the need to store glycogen in muscles for later energy demands.
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Correct Response: C. This item requires examinees to describe the role of body systems in producing movement and the physiological changes that result from physical activity. Energy derived from dietary fat helps fuel low- to moderate-intensity activity as students build up to greater levels of intensity. During exercise, carbohydrates such as sugars and starches are broken down quickly into glucose, the body's main energy source. But as the duration of exercise increases, intensity decreases, and fat becomes an important fuel source, sparing glycogen reserves. Stored fat is broken down and transported through the bloodstream to muscles, allowing carbohydrates to be used at a slower rate, which extends physical endurance and delays the onset of fatigue.

Competency 0003 
Movement Concepts, Skills, and Activities

5. In a first-grade physical education class, students participate in an obstacle course activity that incorporates animal walks and movements. As students travel through the course, the teacher emphasizes relevant vocabulary words. For instance, the teacher asks students to crawl start italicsunderend italics a low bench like a lizard, climb start italicsoverend italics a pile of mats like a mountain goat, jump a start italics zigzag end italics pattern like a rabbit, and walk start italicsquickly end italics like a lemur start italicsacross end italics a balance beam on the floor. Which student learning outcome is this physical education activity most likely designed to elicit?

  1. Demonstrate variations in movement with directional, spatial, and temporal awareness.
  2. Apply an understanding of rules and directions for an active class.
  3. Identify major body parts, muscles, and bones used to move and support the body.
  4. Exhibit cooperative play with children of differing abilities under a variety of conditions.
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Correct Response: A. This item requires examinees to promote understanding of movement concepts related to relationships; spatial, directional, and temporal awareness; qualities of movement; and movement concepts (e.g., self-space, general space, direction, level, pathway, flow, speed). As students use locomotor skills to travel through the obstacle course and move under, over, and across objects, they develop awareness of directional concepts, spatial concepts, and relationships concepts (e.g., relationships to physical education equipment, relationships of body parts working together). Varying their speed contributes to an awareness of the use of time, or temporal awareness, and a variation in effort. Jumping in a zigzag pattern requires a variation in pathways, and climbing and crawling over and under equipment requires variations in levels. In this activity, students demonstrate use of the movement concepts of effort, speed, levels, and pathways with directional, spatial, and temporal awareness.

Competency 0003 
Movement Concepts, Skills, and Activities

6. Use the photograph1 below to answer the question that follows.

elementary school physical education students dribbling balls in a school gymnasium

This photograph shows four elementary school physical education students, dressed in shorts, T-shirts, and sneakers, dribbling basketballs in a school gymnasium. The students are moving away from a wall with a basketball hoop and toward the camera, dribbling balls in their own "lanes," with a few feet between them. The students are using their right hands to dribble. The basketballs are shown in mid-bounce at heights ranging from about knee-level to about waist-level. The students are looking at the basketballs they are dribbling.

The students in this physical education class are practicing dribbling skills. Which instructional prompt would be most effective for helping the students improve their dribbling technique?

  1. "Bounce the ball just in front of the toes of your lead foot."
  2. "Let the ball bounce up and off of the palm of your hand."
  3. "Keep your wrist straight and contact the ball at about chest level."
  4. "Use the pads of your fingers and thumb to push the ball down."
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Correct Response: D. This item requires examinees to demonstrate understanding of techniques, skills, skills progressions, offensive and defensive strategies, safety practices, rules, and types and uses of equipment for team passing sports. In team passing/invasion/territorial sports such as basketball, dribbling is essential for advancing the ball. Students should keep the dominant hand over the ball, spread the fingers, and use the fingertips or finger pads and thumb to feel and manipulate the ball. Maintaining this technique while pushing the ball rhythmically toward the floor allows students to exert greater control over the ball, dribble faster, and change direction while dribbling.

Competency 0004 
Physical Education Curriculum and Pedagogy

7. Use the information below to answer the question that follows.

Strategies for Net and Wall Games and Activities

In physical education classes, these strategies are primarily used for which purpose?

  1. to emphasize the cooperative rather than the competitive nature of games and activities
  2. to maximize the inclusion and equitable participation of students with diverse abilities
  3. to enhance the novelty and challenging nature of net and wall activities
  4. to minimize the need for students to develop competence in striking patterns and skills
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Correct Response: B. This item requires examinees to implement techniques for adapting and modifying rules, games, equipment, instructional approaches, activities, settings, and grouping strategies to accommodate diverse students. With the goal of helping all students maximize individual potential, physical education teachers often adapt and modify activities to provide differentiated instruction to individuals or groups. Modifications to instructional approaches and the content, setting, equipment used, learning activities, and outcomes of lessons can all be used to differentiate instruction and promote the successful participation of all students. In net and wall games and activities, many students can benefit from a variety of textures, weights, and the "feel" of an activity and the equipment used. Adjusting the sizes or boundaries of courts, fields, and goals, as well as the heights of nets, can often decrease the difficulty level of activities and help to ensure the success of students. Playing on carpeted or grassy surfaces increases safety and can slow down the pace of games. Allowing students to choose among equipment of different sizes, weights, and textures helps ensure that students of various skill levels can participate comfortably.

Competency 0004 
Physical Education Curriculum and Pedagogy

8. In a physical education program, teachers work on aligning course-specific learning outcomes with an assessment system that can be used to evaluate students' performance and cognitive understanding of motor skills and can be adapted to different instructional units. The teachers create a four-point rubric using the following achievement levels: Emerging (1), Approaching (2), Meeting the Learning Outcome (3), and Exceeding the Learning Outcome (4). To adapt the rubric to a particular unit of instruction, which step would be the most important one to carry out?

  1. developing criteria for each achievement level that specify the knowledge and skill characteristics expected of students at that level
  2. implementing class activities using a scaffold of increasingly difficult tasks to address the achievement levels from 1 to 4 sequentially
  3. creating criterion-referenced tests requiring higher-level cognitive abilities to ensure that students who have difficulty performing motor skills can be evaluated through alternate means
  4. designing alternate assessments for achievement levels 3 and 4 that allow students to create a product to demonstrate their understanding and competence in relation to learning outcomes
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Correct Response: A. This item requires examinees to demonstrate an understanding of physical education assessment methods, tools, and protocols for analyzing and evaluating student achievement in each learning domain (i.e., psychomotor, affective, and cognitive). A rubric is a matrix of criteria for an expected skill performance or learning outcome that describes the level of performance or achievement associated with each score point on the rubric's scale. A four-point scoring rubric for motor skill performance and understanding would include descriptors designed to specify and clarify the knowledge and skill characteristics a student would be expected to demonstrate or exhibit at each of the four levels (e.g., emerging, approaching, meeting, and exceeding). For example, a rubric for the underhand serve in volleyball might describe skill or movement characteristics associated with position of the feet, the toss or pre-strike, use of the hands and contact with the ball, and follow through and accuracy. Knowledge characteristics might include knowing that the feet should point at a target and that contact should occur above and in front of the head with an open palm. The most useful rubrics are developmentally appropriate, and clearly communicate specific skills and learning expectations that can be used to evaluate student progress and achievement.

Competency 0004 
Physical Education Curriculum and Pedagogy

9. For a middle school project, the physical education teacher plans the following activity:

1. For five school days, students record in a personal journal the amount of time that they spend at school, sleeping, doing homework, using screens, and participating in physical activity.

2. At the end of the week, students analyze their data and graph their information by using bar graphs, line graphs, pictographs, or pie charts.

3. The class discusses, in general terms, how the graphs illustrate daily habits and their potential effect on health-related fitness.

4. Students reflect individually and write down in their journal two ways to improve their health-related fitness.

This project is an effective interdisciplinary activity primarily because it:

  1. prompts students to use tools and skills from other academic areas to investigate physical education fitness concepts.
  2. establishes for students an interconnection between one concept in multiple subject areas, including physical education.
  3. gives students ample time to internalize guidelines for improving health-related fitness from two different subject areas.
  4. allows students to achieve multiple subject-area standards in the course of a single physical education lesson.
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Correct Response: A. This item requires examinees to analyze the relationships and interactions among physical education, other subject areas, and the New York State Pthrough12 Learning Standards; and methods for integrating physical education into the overall school curriculum and district plan. In this interdisciplinary activity, students gather personal health-related data, analyze the data, then use graphing tools and techniques to represent the data and draw conclusions from their findings. In this way, students use mathematics and science tools, skills, and strategies to deepen their understanding of physical education concepts.

Acknowledgments

1Dribbling Basketballs Up the Court. Collection: E+. Credit: FatCamera. Getty Images.