A comparison of instructors' and students' perceptions regarding reasons for participation and the weighting of grading factors as related to basic instruction programs

The purpose of this study was twofold: first to compare instructors' and students' expressed perceptions regarding the importance of reasons for participation in basic instruction programs; second to compare those individuals' selection and weighting of grading factors used to evaluate students in those programs. A three-part survey was administered to individuals involved in 1 of 11 selected activity courses at four Southern universities.;Factor analysis with varimax rotation revealed that 96% of the variance was accounted for by two factors: fitness related courses and sports skill related courses. Statistical analysis was conducted on the mean scores of 29 instructors and 605 students. Depending on which factor a course loaded onto, individuals were identified as either fitness instructors (n = 17), sports skill instructors (n = 12), fitness students (n = 292), or sports skill students (n = 313). Based on these groupings comparisons were made between the following group means: fitness vs. sports skill instructors, fitness vs. sports skill student, fitness instructors vs. fitness students, and sports skill instructors vs. sports skill students.;Results indicated no statistical significance (p ;Comparisons between students indicated that fitness students and sports skill students were significantly different on two of the reasons for participation. Students' perceptions differed significantly on the health and aesthetic reasons for participation. Statistically significant differences were also indicated on 3 of the 10 grading factors. Students differed in perceptions with regard to the weighting of fitness tests, skill tests, and sportsmanship.;Comparisons between instructors and students revealed that only the social/emotional reason for participation was significantly different between fitness instructors and fitness students. Instructors and students from both the fitness related courses and sports skill courses differed on 2 of the 10 grading factors. Both fitness and sports skill instructors and students differed significantly on the weighting of knowledge tests. Sports skill instructors and students also differed significantly on the weighting of skill tests.