Pedagogical diagnostics in swimming: A need for comprehensive education

Researchers have been attempting to quantify learners aquatic skills since the 1970s (Erbaugh, 1978). The objectives were (i) the investigation of effects on different aquatic training methods, (ii) the evaluation of human physical adequacy in the water in general or (iii) the assessment of swimming and water safety competencies more specifically. More recently, the focus has been set on the comparison of perceived and actual water competence (i.e., Costa et al., 2020). Most of these assessments are, at least in part, based on diagnostics of basic aquatic skills, which form the foundation of a compre-hensive aquatic education. Scientists require diagnostic procedures to be transferable into practical situations. Other than applying scientific diagnostics benefiting research, there is a need for an applicable every-day-approach supporting practitioners in their planning of swimming lessons. In that sense, particularly qualitative diagnostic procedures have been suggested to also match inclusive settings (Mertens et al., 2021).
The Assessment of Basic Aquatic Skills (ABAS; Vogt & Staub, 2020) has been designed as an easy-to-apply tool for the assessment of physical capabilities of learners in swimming. However, actual planning of individualised (swimming) lessons and adaptive teaching needs a pedagogical diagnostic of learners' prerequisites to begin with. For this purpose, the 19 ABAS tasks have been transferred to a diagnostic procedure in swimming to determine the learners' prerequisites. This procedure is structured in two stages: at first, an initial assessment dividing a group of learners up to four consecutive levels of swimming ability. Secondly, the learners' prerequisites are analysed by means of specific ABAS tasks according to the respective level. Based on the results of such pedagogical diagnostics, it will be possible to structure learning op-portunities focussing different prerequisites and, thus, designing comprehensive swimming lessons that provide aquatic literacy for all children.
References
Costa, A. M., Frias, A., Ferreira, S. S., Costa, M. J., Silva, A. J., & Garrido, N. D. (2020). Perceived and real aquatic compe-tence in children from 6 to 10 years old. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(17), 6101.
Erbaugh, S. J. (1978). Assessment of swimming performance of preschool children. Perceptual and motor skills, 46(3_suppl2), 1179-1182.
Mertens, L., De Martelaer, K., Saakslahti, A., & DHondt, E. (2021, Dec 31). The Inter-Rater and Intra-Rater Reliability of the Actual Aquatic Skills Test (AAST) for Assessing Young Childrens Motor Competence in the Water. Int J Environ Res Public Health, 19(1). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19010446
Vogt, T., & Staub, I. (2020). Assessment of basic aquatic skills in children: inter-rater reliability of coaches, teachers, stu-dents and parents. Journal of Physical Education and Sport, 20(2), 577-583. https://doi.org/0.7752/jpes.2020