Physical Education · Ch 6 — Test, Measurement & Evaluation
Physical Tests
Physical Tests
Physical tests are performed to measure physical characteristics of an individual. Like health-related tests, they measure only the person's physical presence - they do not require any effort or physical activity from the subject. A physical test measures the size or components of the body or its parts, and it needs a tester and a subject to be tested.
Typical examples are the measurement of height, weight, circumference, diameter and skinfolds, as well as blood tests and X-rays. Because they capture the body's structural facts rather than its performance, physical tests supply the raw body data on which anthropometric and health assessments are built.
Why physical tests matter
Physical tests answer the question "what is this body actually made of and shaped like, right now?" - as distinct from "what can this body do?", the job of psychomotor tests in Section 6.3.2. Because the subject contributes no effort, a physical test's result cannot be improved by trying harder, or faked through extra motivation on the day - it is a direct structural fact, which makes it an unusually objective and repeatable baseline. This is exactly why so many fitness and medical screening programmes start with physical tests before moving on to effort-based performance tests.
How a physical test is conducted
The common pattern across all physical tests is: a trained tester uses a calibrated instrument - a stadiometer, weighing scale, tape measure, skinfold calliper, or a medical device such as an X-ray or blood-test machine - to record a structural reading from the subject, who simply stands or sits still while it is taken. No warm-up, skill or motor coordination is required of the subject, only cooperation in holding the correct position. Because the subject's own effort does not affect the reading, repeat measurements under the same conditions should closely agree, which is what makes a physical test reliable as a baseline against which later change, such as from a training programme, can be judged.