Assessment tools in physical and sports education in school context: an overview.

Introduction: During the developmental age the acquisition of skills is a priority objective in all learning contexts. The student will be competent when he will be able to use knowledge, skills, attitudes, emotions to effectively face the situations that everyday reality proposes to him in relation to his potential and attitudes. In motor-sports contexts this affirmation is declined in the ability to use ones personal, social and methodological resources in the expressive, sports, well-being and leisure fields. In the design of learning environments aimed at the development of competences it is essential to consider the following dimensions of competence: cognitive, operational-motor, social, metacognitive. The aim of this paper is to identify the different assessment tools available in the literature that are able to detect the different dimensions of competence and the complex relationships between them that manifest themselves in the context of physical and sports education. Methods: We reviewed the assessment tools that have been used to measure motricity, cognition and emotion in young people/youth aged between 6 and 18 years old. We identified assessment tools more functional in the educational field. In order to identify them we used the keywords “motor/cognitive/emotional/social-dimension” “children” “scales” “questionnaire” “school” “assessment tools” “competence” in scientific platforms like Google scholar, PubMed, ResearchGate, Scopus, Web of science. Results: The scientific literature analysis has identified assessment tools for motor development cognitive, emotional and psychosocial development. We selected tools that are more suitable for use in the school environment to provide an overview summarising the specific evaluation domains of the most appropriate tools for understanding the specific assessment. Discussion: The evaluation of competence in the field of motor sports in the school context is very complex. The study shows strong interconnections between the different dimensions of competence (1), highlighting the need to use different evaluation tools that, integrating with each other, can give us the information and feedback useful to act effectively in the design of educational interventions.