Why a position statement on Assessment in Physical Education? The purpose of this AIESEP Position Statement on Assessment in Physical Education (PE) is fourfold: • To advocate internationally for the importance of assessment practices as central to providing meaningful, relevant and worthwhile physical education; • To advise the field of PE about assessment-related concepts informed by research and contemporary practice; • To identify pressing research questions and avenues for new research in the area of PE assessment; • To provide a supporting rationale for colleagues who wish to apply for research funds to address questions about PE assessment or who have opportunities to work with or influence policy makers. The main target groups for this position statement are PE teachers, PE pre-service teachers, PE curriculum officers, PE teacher educators, PE researchers, PE administrators and PE policy makers. How was this position statement created? The AIESEP specialist seminar ‘Future Directions in PE Assessment’ was held from October 18-20 2018, at Fontys University of Applied Sciences in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The seminar aimed to bring together leading scholars in the field to present and discuss ‘evidence-informed’ views on various topics around PE assessment. It brought together 71 experts from 20 countries (see appendix 2) to share research on PE assessment via keynote lectures and research presentations and to discuss assessment-related issues in interactive sessions. Input from this meeting informed a first draft version of the statement. This first draft was sent to all participants of the specialist seminar for feedback, from which a second draft was created. This draft was presented at the AIESEP International Conference 2019 in Garden City, New York, after which further feedback was collected from participants both on site and through an online survey. The main contributors to the writing of the position statement are mentioned in appendix 1. Approval was granted by the AIESEP Board on May 7th, 2020. Largely in keeping with the main themes of the AIESEP specialist seminar ‘Future Directions in PE Assessment’, this Position Statement is divided into the following sections: Assessment Literacy; Accountability & Policy; Instructional Alignment; Assessment for Learning; Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) and Continuing Professional Development; Digital Technology in PE Assessment. These sections are preceded by a brief overview of research data on PE. The statement concludes with directions for future research.
The in-depth assessment of the situation of the European textile and clothing sector is composed by six independent reports with a close focus on key aspects useful to understand the dynamics and the development of the textile and clothing industry, drivers of change – most notably the impact of the financial crisis – and identification of policy responses and best practices. This has been done in six specific tasks leading to the six reports: Task 1 Survey on the situation of the EU textile and clothing sector Task 2 Report on research and development Task 3 Report on SME situation Task 4 Report on restructuring Task 5 Report on training and Education Task 6 Report on innovation practices The overall objective of the study in Task 3 is the “assessment of main difficulties faced by T/C SMEs in 5 regions of the EU and prospects to overcome these difficulties”. - to assess the general problems that SMEs are pre-facing because of “all-encompassing” phenomena such as globalization and the financial/economic crisis (2008-2010). This part of the study shall highlight the general context that all SMEs have to cope wit - to identify paradigmatic situations or cases (in terms of regions/clusters and SMEs) that, for their clarity, or special conditions, may highlight new developments and/or unprecedented business conditions for SMEs. This part will provide inputs for designing support initiatives targeting specific problems in order to understand how SMEs: - see the competitive context - overcome constraints - reposition the firm by learning or (dis)investing - are hampered in their change by institutional factors.
MULTIFILE
Both because of the shortcomings of existing risk assessment methodologies, as well as newly available tools to predict hazard and risk with machine learning approaches, there has been an emerging emphasis on probabilistic risk assessment. Increasingly sophisticated AI models can be applied to a plethora of exposure and hazard data to obtain not only predictions for particular endpoints but also to estimate the uncertainty of the risk assessment outcome. This provides the basis for a shift from deterministic to more probabilistic approaches but comes at the cost of an increased complexity of the process as it requires more resources and human expertise. There are still challenges to overcome before a probabilistic paradigm is fully embraced by regulators. Based on an earlier white paper (Maertens et al., 2022), a workshop discussed the prospects, challenges and path forward for implementing such AI-based probabilistic hazard assessment. Moving forward, we will see the transition from categorized into probabilistic and dose-dependent hazard outcomes, the application of internal thresholds of toxicological concern for data-poor substances, the acknowledgement of user-friendly open-source software, a rise in the expertise of toxicologists required to understand and interpret artificial intelligence models, and the honest communication of uncertainty in risk assessment to the public.
