Teachers’ Competency towards the Implementation of School Based Assessment in Secondary Schools in Edo State, Nigeria (Published)

The role of School Based Assessment (SBA) emphasized the teacher as a facilitator and an assessor. The assessment strategies involved in SBA requires a lot of responsibilities on the side of the teacher. Therefore, the research is aimed to assess teachers’ competency towards the implementation of school based assessment in secondary schools in Edo State, Nigeria with the objective to determine the level of teachers’ competency towards the implementation of school based assessment and ascertain if difference exist with respect to the teachers sex, qualification and experience. In order to achieve this, one research question was raised and three hypotheses were formulated and tested in the course of the study. The study adopted the survey research design. All teachers in the 303 public secondary schools in the eighteen local government areas of the state formed the population. The simple random sampling technique was used to select 687 teachers from 61 public schools across the eighteen local government areas of the state for the study. The questionnaire titled “Teachers Competency toward the implementation of School- Based Assessment Questionnaire (TCSBQ). The instrument was validated and yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.84 using the Cronbach Alpha method. The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research question and independent t- test statistics to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that the teachers are competent towards the implementing SBA. Also the results revealed no significant difference between male and female teachers while differences exist among the teachers with respect to teaching qualification and experience. It was recommended that government should provide more platform for professional development programmes and frequent training workshops and seminars that will continuously sensitize and enhance teachers in the SBA practices.

Keywords: Assessment, Implementation, School-based assessment, competency

Pre-Service Teachers Assessment of Student Learning in Science Education (Published)

This paper was conducted to examine the tools, strategies, and problems encountered in assessing student learning by pre-service teachers in science during their on-and-off campus clinical experience. A explanatory sequential mixed method design (Creswell, 2003) was used in this study. Three research-made instruments were used in this study: The Assessment Checklist for Student Teachers in Science, Focus Group Discussion (FGD) Questions, and the In-depth Interview Questions. There were 17 pre-service teachers participated from a teacher education institution. Findings of the study using Kruskal-Wallis One-way Analysis of Variance and Thematical Analysis using Phenomenological Reduction Method revealed the assessment tools used most frequently and least frequently, assessment strategies, and the problems encountered by pre-service teachers in science in assessing student learning.  The findings also revealed that there was a significant difference in the use of rubric (p value=0.045) as the least frequently used assessment tool by pre-service teachers in science when grouped according to specialization.

Keywords: Assessment, Pre-Service Teachers, Science Education, Sequential Explanatory, and Student Learning

Selection Standardization and Musical Instruments Assessment of Music Instruments Preparation Subject in Music Education Study Program of Unimed (Published)

Factors which influences students to choose musical instrument such as: the role of musical instruments in musical performances, the influence of parents, the influence of teacher, the influence of sex, the availability of instruments, playing techniques and musicality. Selection standarization of musical instrument are used to see the extent of students in choosing musical instrument which is appropriate with the standard that has been determined by the lecturer. The standards for selecting musical instruments compiled by the lecturer team are: Piano Instruments, Swipe Instruments, Vocals, Blowing Instruments, Percussion Instruments, Drum Set Percussion Instruments / Percussion Instruments in addition to Drum Set / Standard and Voting Instrument Selection Assessment. From the standard of musical instrument, students choose musical instruments in accordance with established standards to take Music Instruments Preparation Subject and to achieve the competency of its subject.

Keywords: Assessment, Musical Instruments, Selection, standardization

Analysis of Senior High School Mathematics Teacher Characteristics and Utilization of Assessment Practices (Published)

The study sought to examine mathematics teacher characteristics that influence their use of assessment procedures in teaching and learning. The study adopted the descriptive survey design and the participants were 88 senior high school mathematics teachers sampled from the randomly selected schools from the Sunyani municipality. A four point Likert scale questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. The internal consistencies of the various sections of the instrument ranged from 0.69 to 0.78. The data collected were analysed using the independent t-test and one-way of variance ANOVA. The results from the study showed that assessment practices were not influenced by teacher characteristics such as gender and years of teaching. It was however found that professionalism of the teacher and exposure to INSET on classroom assessment influenced the use of assessment in the classroom. The recommendations drawn are that teachers must be encouraged and supported to participate in in-service training which retrains them on the need to involve assessment practices in teaching and learning. It is also recommended that professional teachers must be recruited to teach all subjects especially mathematics.

Keywords: Assessment, Classroom Practice, Feedback, Teacher Characteristics

Assessment of Students Learning In the Classroom in Secondary Schools in Delta North Senatorial District of Delta State. (Published)

The way and manner in which students go through specific steps or stages of learning or understanding resulted to the learning theories that must be met. These theories led to the assessment of student learning in the classroom in secondary schools. These theories are associated with certain type of instructions that yield productive outcomes in students learning in the classroom. The research design employed is the descriptive survey design. Two research questions were raised and two hypotheses were formulated for the study and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The sample of the study consisted of 360 secondary school teachers by means of stratified sampling technique. Questionnaire was used for gathering data for the study. Data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation for the research questions and t-test-statistic for the stated hypotheses. It was observed that there was significant difference between male and female teachers, urban and rural teachers’ assessment of student learning in the classroom in secondary schools in Delta North Senatorial District. This implies that some teachers applied these theories hap-hazardly when assessing students learning in the classroom. It is therefore recommended that teachers should develop and try out new assessment methods that give them better information about how to help students improve; Teachers should endeavour to attend seminars, symposia, workshops and conferences regularly to update their professional competence in classroom assessment.

Keywords: Assessment, Classroom and Theories of learning, Learning

A Comparative Study of the Teaching and Evaluation Processes in Sandwich Degree Programmes in Two Nigerian Universities (Published)

The training of teachers through the sandwich mode has been perceived by many as a medium for training teachers who cannot compete favourably in the labour market with those trained in the conventional universities. The reasons are attributed to some factors especially, the period stipulated for training in this program. It is against this background that this study compared the teaching and evaluation processes in sandwich B.Ed degree programs at University of Abuja ( Uniabuja) and University of Nigeria Nsukka ( UNN). A descriptive survey design was employed for the study. The population was made up of 560 and 676 final year students of Uniabuja and UNN respectively. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were employed to select a sample of 100 students from each university thereby making a total of200 students. A four-point likert- scale questionnaire was used for data collection. Research questions were analysed with means scores while t-test was used to test the hypotheses. Results of this study show that there was significant difference in the extent to which course contents are covered in both universities and the evaluation and feedback mechanisms were effective. The study inter alia suggests an increase in the staff strength of lecturers in Uniabuja to help in the reduction of workload for more program effectiveness

Keywords: Assessment, Content coverage, Feedback, Sandwich, Teaching

Is Teaching Practice for Grading or Improvement? Examining Student teachers’ Perception and Experience at the University of Dar es salaam, Tanzania (Review Completed - Accepted)

Teaching practice is the central activity in testing teaching skills gathered in classroom learning and in preparing professional teachers in any country. The current study investigated student teachers perception and experience on the teaching practice supervisor’s treatment, student supervisor pre or post classroom discussion and teaching practice processes in general. The data to inform the study were collected from 112 student teachers: 67 were males and 45 females and the tools used were questionnaires both structured and non-structured. Of these 52 were second years while 60 were third years. Majority of respondents about 95(84.8) were pre service and 17 (15.2%) were in-service. The findings revealed that student teachers had positive perception on teaching practice exercise, teaching practice supervisor’s treatment, and supervisor-student feedback provision style. It was also discovered that demographic variables such as: sex, year of study and professional background had a slight influence on student teachers perception on teaching practice exercise, supervisors treatment, and supervisor-student feedback styles. In line to that 42 (37.5%) student-teachers’ acknowledged the concept that teaching practice is for improvement and the remaining percentages were given to factors associated to opposite dimension. It was therefore concluded that, there is a need for strengthening the teaching practice supervision exercise and specifically the collaboration between university teaching practice office and the teaching practice-host institutions should be improved so as to minimize the challenges emanating from miscommunication during the teaching practice exercise

Keywords: : Teaching practice, Assessment, Feedback, Perception, Supervision