Teachers’ Attitude Towards Continuous Assessment In Government In Public Secondary Schools In Nkwerre Local Government Area

ABSTRACT

This study focused on teachers’ attitude towards continuous assessment in government in public secondary schools using Nkwerre Local Government Area Imo State as the focal point. The study was carried out to find out the general attitude of teachers of government towards the use of continuous assessment; and teachers’ perceptions of the usefulness of continuous assessment as an assessment tool. The research questions used include what is the general attitude of teachers of government towards the use of continuous assessment?; what is the perception of teachers of government regarding feedback of continuous assessment?; and what are the teachers’ perceptions of the usefulness of continuous assessment as an assessment tool? The population of the study consisted of 638 people (3 government teachers, and 635 students). Also, from the population the researcher sampled 368 persons for the study. It was stated that the study will be useful and beneficial to the government, policy makers, and school owners, school administrators, students, teachers, examinations bodies, and further researchers. Based on the above, the researcher employed survey research design and population of the study made up of the entire government teachers and students in Nkwerre LGA of Imo State. The researcher used purposive sampling technique to select the sample size for the study and questionnaire served as the instrument of data collection. The data collected were analyzed using mean frequency. Based on the findings, it was recommended that individual schools should set up a monitoring body to ensure that teachers comply with the policy guideline that will guarantee the credibility, integrity and utility—value of continuous assessment programme in the schools; and teachers should be trained on the procedure to transform continuous assessment scores and Continuous assessment scores should be transformed to allow for comparison scores among schools.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the introductory section of this study under the following subheadings; background to the study, statement of the problem, scope of the study, purpose of the study, significance of the study and research questions.

 Background to the Study

Education   is   the   most   important component of human resources development and is accorded a pride of place in many countries developmental activities. There is no doubt that the importance of education cannot be underscored because there is no country that has succeeded without educating its people. Education according to Osokoya (2009) helps to improve security, health, prosperity and ecological balance in the world. It encourages social, economic and cultural progress, tolerance, national and international cooperation. Akomolafe (2009) describes education as a single most effective means of curbing population growth, reducing child mortality, eradicating poverty and ensuring democracy, peace and sustainable development.

Education is an instrument for the acquisition of appropriate skills, ability and competence both mental and physical also as equipment for individual to live and contribute to the development of his/her society (Lawal, 2013). Also, in the views of Usha (2007) it is the process of teaching and training of the child which has to do with imparting and acquisition of skills for a particular trade or profession in which applicable methods are used. The establishment of school system therefore serves as the basic instrument for achievement of educational objectives. The school has enormous functions and one of them is the certification of the individual learner under its embrace (Idowu & Esere, 2009). In educational institutions (secondary school system) many subject are thought to trainers of which government is one.

Government is one of the subjects which students offer in the secondary school level. To effectively carry out its role, assessment of one kind or the other is a prerequisite for government students and other students in the school system. Assessment is a means whereby the teacher obtains information about knowledge gains, behavioural changes and other aspects of the development of learners (Oguneye 2012). It involves the deliberate effort of the teacher to measure ‘the effect of the instructional process as well as the overall effect of school learning on the behaviour of students. Assessment covers all aspects of school experience both within and outside the classroom. Assessment for government students and for other subjects covers the cognitive as well as the affective and psychomotor aspects of learning.

Here, continuous assessment is a method of ascertaining what a child gains from schooling in terms of knowledge, industry and character development, taking into account all his/her performances in tests, assignments, projects and other educational activities during a given period of term, year, or during the entire period of an educational level (Ipaye, 2008). It is also a method of using the recorded performances of each pupil to help him or ‘her improve on his or her achievement through guidance. According to Esere and Adeyemi (2010), continuous assessment refers to a systematic and objective process of determining the extent of a student’s performance in all the expected changes in his behaviour, from the day he enters upon a course of study and a judicious accumulation of all pieces of information derived from this purpose with a view to using them to guide and shape the student and to serve as basis for making important decisions about the child. In other words, continuous assessment should be systematic, comprehensive, cumulative and guidance oriented. Continuous assessment is used for different subjects of which government is one. Therefore, if government students must perform well academically, the use of continuous assessment must be effective, According to Osuagwu (2011) government as a discipline may be defined as the study of agencies, political institutions and dynamics of the state. This study also involves looking into the functions and relationship that exists between these institutions that direct the affairs of the state. So government as an academic field of study also studies international organization that the state claim membership and relationship between the state and other state in the world politics.

When government students are well assessed thorough continuous assessment, they will know their area of weakness and therefore concentrate for the main exam. It has been asserted that some government teachers may not show the needed attitude towards government students as it concerns continuous assessments. Attitude here is the behaviour of people (teachers) towards the achievement of the set goals (Oguneye 2012). Some government teachers in public secondary schools give students continuous assessment in line with what they have taught and others go beyond what they have taught. Different government teachers give different continuous assessment like take home assignments, class quiz, term paper, class test, class competition and many others.

Furthermore, when giving a take home assignment or term paper, some government students may contract more experienced people to assist them and others may do it on their own. Based on that, there is a great need to examine the attitude of teachers in continuous assessment for government, especially in, public secondary schools in our system. The development of quality school based continuous assessment instrument cannot be taken for granted. It is often noticed that some teachers construct tests which could be too difficult or too easy and hitherto, majority of testees will either fail or pass the test respectively. Denga (2007) also argued that there are classroom teachers who deliberately give too easy a test to the students to receive praise from the students while some other teachers give tests which are above the mental ability of the students to show that they are intelligent and tough. These go a long way to affect the standard of the continuous assessment scores. Ojerinde (2010) doubted the reliability of the ‘continuous assessment scores generated from different assessment instruments in the same subject from the different schools and hence asked whether the raw scores sent by each school could be relied upon.

Statement of the Problem

There is no agreement by scholars on the best assessment platform for learners in the school system. This is the reason some government teachers use take home term paper/assignments and others use class test and quiz. The lack of assessment standardization has made it possible that some teachers of government give very easy continuous assessment; others give very hard or average assessment.

In most public schools, there is problem of non-uniformity in the quality of assessments instruments, consistency in assessment administrative procedure and procedure for scoring and grading which varies from teacher to teacher. Some schools seem to use this advantage to unduly inflate continuous assessment scores of the students to favour their schools. The ratio of continuous assessment marks and final examination marks (in most cases) vary from one school to another. Some schools use the one-short end-of-course examination which have been criticized for having repressive and restricting effects on both the teachers and the students and which in recent time has high degree of examination malpractices. There is a gross disparity in the quality of education among secondary schools that would make it difficult to compare the grades given by one school with grades given by another; hence the need to investigate teachers’ attitude towards continuous assessment in government in public secondary schools in Nkwerre Local Government Area.

Scope of the Study

This study focused on teachers’ attitude towards continuous assessment in    government in public secondary schools. Geographically, the study is delimited to Nkwerre Local Government Area. The content scope of the study covers teachers’ attitude, types of assessment, continuous assessment.

Purpose of the Study

The general purpose of this study focused on teachers’ attitude towards continuous assessment in government in public secondary schools in Nkwerre Local Government

1. Ascertain the general attitude of teachers of government towards the use of continuous assessment.
2. Examine the perception of teachers of government regarding feedback of continuous assessment.
3. Find out teachers’ perceptions of the usefulness of continuous assessment as an assessment tool.

 Significance of the Study

This study will be useful and beneficial to the government, policy makers, school proprietors, school administrators, parents, guidance and councilors, students, examinations bodies, and further researchers.

Government: This study will enable the government to make and implement policies that will encourage the uniformity and the effectiveness of the continuous assessment for government in public secondary schools.

Policy makers: The study will be useful to the policy makers because they will understand the need to make policies that will be implementable in the school system. Such policies will therefore encourage the use of continuous assessment for government.

 School proprietors: The study will be beneficial to owners of secondary schools. This is true because they will understand the value of employing only qualified and professionally trained teachers, who can effectively utilize continuous assessment toward the achievement of educational objectives,

School administrators: The study will enable them to effectively and efficiently perform their functions in the school system for the benefit of the stakeholders, especially the students. They will understand the benefit of encouraging students to do their assessment very effectively.

 Parents: They will encourage their children to always pay good attention to continuous assessment so as to achieve good academic performance.

 Guidance and councilors: The study will enable them to perform their functions very well by giving positive advice, directives, and encouragement to students and teachers on the need to give good attention to continuous assessment in the school system.

 Students: The study will expose students to the benefit of continuous assessment. For that, government students will be able to pay good attention in doing their continuous assessment so as to achieve positive academic performance.

 Examination bodies: The findings will give insight to our testing agencies that the candidates abilities to perform in public examination, should be based only on what we produce as individuals, using a repertoire of knowledge and skills that are responsive to particular task. The findings may lead to reforms necessary to improve upon common assessment measures in the education system. This may have advantage of giving teachers and testing agencies, clear models of acceptable outcomes and make them have positive attitudes towards instruction and learning. In sum, positive change in attitudes may narrow down education gap, either real, or imagined, in the national, racial, linguistic and cultural and gender spheres across the nation.

 Further researchers: Lastly, this study will serve as an empirical study and as a relevant material to subsequent researchers who might be carrying out a related topic to this.

Research Questions

The following research questions were posed by the researcher to guide the study:

1. What is the general attitude of teachers of government towards the use of continuous assessment?
2. What is the perception of teachers of government regarding feedback of continuous assessment?
3. What are the teachers’ perceptions of the usefulness of continuous assessment as an assessment tool?
   

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   Pages:  77

   Category: Project

   Format:  Word & PDF               

   Chapters: 1-5                                          

   Source: Imsuinfo                            

   Material contains Table of Content, Abstract and References.