ABSTRACT
Quality education is the bedrock of national development and progress. In the course of the history of education in Ghana, there arose the need to improve accessibility. Hence, a series of interventions such as the Education For All (EFA), the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE), the Fast Track Initiative (FTI), and the abolition of school fees and levies which led to the introduction of the Capitation Grant scheme (CGS), were introduced. These initiatives triggered a surge in enrolment figures in public primary schools by about sixteen percent (16%). It became necessary that after getting the children into school, the government should ensure that the children receive relevant literacy skills and for that matter, academic knowledge.
As a sequel to this development, there arose the need for quality instruction in the classroom, an issue which has become a major concern among reform movements across the world. Concern with quality immediately gives rise to the issue of assessment. Assessment is the process of obtaining information that is used to make educational decisions about students, to give feedback to the students about their progress, strengths and weaknesses and to judge instructional effectiveness and weaknesses and curricula adequacy. This is why various reforms that have dominated the education scene in the last three decades propose the use of assessment as a critical factor to improve quality.
This research is to find out the opinions of the actual administrators and users of assessment results. The views collated from the various stakeholders showed that there is no major attempt to use the results of the various assessments so far conducted in the public schools in the classrooms to target the individual testees. Also, the opinions gathered suggest that many teachers in the classroom need a serious training / orientation on how to plan a test and how to write good test items.
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D E D I C A T I O N
This work is dedicated to my father, Benjamin Kwaku Prempeh Esq. and Dr. Ato Essuman, Member, Council of State and former Chief Director, Ministry of Education.
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A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T
I am greatly indebted to God, the almighty for bringing me this far. I am most grateful to Prof. Akosua Aniyidoho, my Supervisor, for her tolerance and guidance throughout the preparation of this work. She has proved to be an ideal mother especially the support she gave me when I nearly lost my only child while I was writing this dissertation.
To all the lecturers at the Department of Linguistics, I express my deepest gratitude.
I wish to register my sincerest appreciation to Dr. Ato Essuman, former Chief Director, Ministry of Education, Accra for the invaluable support he gave to me during my studentship.
May God bless all those who helped me in diverse ways to bring this work to fruition.
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Declaration Abstract Dedication
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Acknowledgement iv Abbreviations ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE:
- Background 1
- Statement of the problem 3
- The purpose of the study – 4
- The scope of the study 5
- The research objectives 5
- The research question – 6
- Hypothesis – 6
- Limitation of the study – 6
- Organization of the study – 7
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CHAPTER TWO:
- Importance of language 8
- Concept of Achievement 8
2.6. Past and current assessment systems in use in the Ghana Education Service– 16
2.6.1 Continuous Assessment (CA) ——————————————————— 16
2.6.2 Criterion – Referenced Test (CRT) ————————————————— 19
2.6.3 Participatory Performance Monitoring ———————————————- 21
2.6.4 Rationale for a unified national assessment format ——————————– 23
2.6.5 National Education Assessment (NEA) ———————————————- 24
2.6.6 National Education Assessment (NEA) ———————————————- 25
2.6.7 School Education Assessment (SEA) ———————————————— 26
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH DESIGN
- Methodology – 30
- Research Design 30
- Method used 32
3.3 Designing the semi-structured interview ——————————————– 32
3.4 Interviewing 34
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| 3.5 | Identity and negotiating access —————————————————– | 35 | |
| 3.6 | Plan and conduct of the interview ————————————————– | 36 | |
| 3.7 | Sampling | 36 |
CHAPTER FOUR:
Discussion of data 38
- How long have you been teaching in the Ghana Education Service?————- 39
- How long have you been in the administration in this school/ district?———————– 40
- Have you heard of BECAS? 40
- Has your school or municipality ever participated in any BECAS assessment?————– 41
- Was your class involved? 42
- How did your class/pupils fare?————————————————————— 42
- How did the test result impact on the teaching and learning in your school?—————– 42
- In your opinion, do you think assessment tests should be sustained?————————- 43
- How can the quality and usefulness of the tests be improved?——————————- 45
- Are assessment tests useful to quality education delivery?———————————– 47
CHAPTER FIVE
- Summary, Conclusion and recommendations————————————————- 49
- Summary 49
- Conclusion 50
- Recommendations 51
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REFERENCES———————————————————————————————— 53
APPENDICES
- Interview schedule for respondents (Questionnaire)—————————————- 58
- Setting good tests 59
- Writing good test items 60
Formal assessment methods 61
- Setting short answer question types 62
- Writing multiple questions 63
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ABBREVIATIONS
Some terminologies and abbreviations have been used in the study which needs to be defined:
AED : Academy for Educational Development ASU : Assessment Services Unit
AFT : American Federation of Teachers CA : Continuous Assessment
CRDD: Curriculum Research and Development Division. CRT : Criterion Reference Test
GES : Ghana Education Service.
- : The local language spoken in a given location and not necessarily a mother tongue.
- : A second language that has been adopted as an official or national language. In this study, English is the second language.
NCME: National Council on Measurement in Education. NEA : National Education Assessment
PMT : Performance Monitoring Test
QUATEM: QUIPS Achievement Test in English and Mathematics. QUIPS: Quality Improvement in Primary School.
Rural : A location whose population is less than 5,000. SACMEQ: Southern Africa Consortium for Educational Quality. SBA : School-Based Assessment.
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SEA : School Education Assessment
TIMSS: Third International Mathematics and Science Study.
UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Urban : Classification of location with a population size of 5,000 or more. WAEC: West African Examinations Council.
CHAPTER ONE
BACKGROUND
INTRODUCTION
Increased access to education for all school-age children by the year 2015 is a cardinal objective of the Education For All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Many countries, especially low income countries including Ghana, have therefore adopted policies to achieve this objective. Ghana‟s constitutional obligation to provide Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) did not lead to the desired results (FCUBE Mid-Term Evaluation Report, 2002)? However, to ensure that targets are met by 2015, existing national affirmative action programmes, like the girl-child education drive and school feeding programmes, have been supplemented by specific additional interventions, notably, Education For All (EFA), Fast Track Initiatives (FTI) and the abolition of school fees and levies, otherwise known as the Capitation Grant Scheme (CGS). The latter initiatives have triggered a major surge in enrolment figures in public primary schools by about sixteen percent (16%).Consequently, it has become imperative that, after getting the children into school, there is the need to ensure that they receive relevant academic knowledge.
This is why, as a sequel to this development, there arose the need to ensure improvement in quality instruction which has become a major concern of educational reform movements across the world. A concern with quality immediately gives rise to the issue of assessment. Assessment is the process of obtaining information that is used to make educational decisions about students; to give feedback to the student about the
progress, strengths and weaknesses, to judge instructional effectiveness and curricula adequacy, and inform policy. Assessments are also intended to help the teacher to establish what the students already know and what they need to learn. It is as a result of this that a teacher would know what children are able to do or not able to do, and to plan accordingly.
Consequently, research into school assessment as an essential tool for effective teaching and learning has witnessed a tremendous increase in recent years (Assessment Support Group, 1999). This is why various reforms that have dominated the education scene in the last three decades propose the use of assessment as a critical factor to improve educational quality. According to Gipps (1994), “assessment results provide information on students‟ learning achievement, problems and indicate needs for remediation”. Assessment is therefore a powerful tool for diagnosing learning problems to promote effective teaching and learning. The overarching purpose of assessment, therefore, “is to give teachers the information needed to provide quality instruction” (McMillan, 2001).In spite of the pivotal role assessment plays in the teaching and learning process, little is known about how pupils are assessed by their teachers (Kellaghan and Greaney, 2004). Indeed, there appears to be evidence that the quality of assessment may be deficient in many ways. Some of the problems that have been identified include the use of poorly focused questions, a predominance of questions that require short answers involving factual knowledge, the evocation of responses that involve repetition rather than reflection, and the lack of procedures designed to develop higher order skills (Black and William, 1998; Madaus and Kellaghan, 1992).
Research in assessment practices in Africa also reveals similar situations as stated above. The Kenyan study in relation to questioning during English language lessons reveals that questions were not asked in many lessons at all. Where questions were asked, they were the closed type. Closed questions are those that do not facilitate the development of higher order thinking; for example, “What is a noun?” It was further noted that there was little assessment of pupils‟ understanding of previous English language lessons before new lessons were taught (diagnostic).
In Tanzania, a low taxonomic level questioning, which was described as mere recall of facts, was noted in primary classes. The pupils responded individually or in chorus to questions posed.
In a study that compared Ghanaian and Japanese classroom assessment (Hattori and Saba, 2008, cited in ESP Report 2009: 3) found that Ghanaian teachers asked mainly fact eliciting questions that demanded simple answers, unlike their Japanese counterparts.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The frequently asked question by policy-makers and other stakeholders in education today is: “Are pupils, as a result of being in school, acquiring the relevant
knowledge, skills and attitudes in the English Language?” isThias question that
assessment outcomes are sometimes used in finding answers to.
The 2007 Education Sector Report has revealed that learning achievements especially in literacy, is very low. According to the report, only 16% of Ghana‟s youth attain proficiency in literacy by primary six. The Report further revealed that teachers‟ classroom assessments are not properly done. This is traced to the Continuous
Assessment (CA) scores obtained from the schools, which constitute 40% of the total scores needed for a candidate to pass the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE). The BECE is the only external examination administered in the first ten years of schooling, whilst end of term and end of year assessments for each grade are set and administered by the teachers. There is evidence that currently the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), which is the certifying body, does not accept wholesale Continuous Assessment (CA) scores since it appears there is no correlation between the CA results and the external assessment results, due to the lackadaisical and unprofessional manner in which the continuous assessment test and, for that matter, school tests are administered by teachers. Consequently, there have been threats of non – inclusion of CA results from the schools into the overall WAEC scores. As a compromise, therefore, CA marks are standardized before they are added to the external examination results. These complications between the external examining body and classroom teachers call for a close look at assessment practices in the schools. I believe that the findings of a research into national assessments, and how they are conducted, may inform education providers and managers to design new ways for their improvement, and ultimately improve instruction in the English language in the classroom.
THE PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of the study is to conduct an in-depth investigation (using data collected from the opinions of key administrators and users of assessment results) into the various national assessment programmes in the English language, including those used in the past and those that are currently running in Ghana. This is in a bid to suggest how a
formative test in English for the primary school should be designed, and the subsequent use of the test results to improve instruction in English.
The study, hopefully, will be beneficial to future national/district assessment managers and students of educational measurement and assessment or psychometricians who wish to assess children‟s performance in the English language.
