ENACTMENT OF AND RATIONALE FOR USING FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES
7.4 Analysis of students’ scripts and educators’ course outlines
173 7.3.4 Observation of students’ hands-on activities
According to Chan (2009) observation occurs during on-going activities of teaching and learning and the interaction between teacher and students. With direct observation, the teacher or assessor observes the students performing the assessment task, while he or she goes around to see if the students can perform the task that has been assigned to them properly. Classroom observation revealed that teacher educators frequently utilise direct observation as an effective means of gathering feedback about their teaching and students' understanding, as students work on assessment tasks individually or in groups. Data generated by teacher educators were used to fine- tune their pedagogy to cater for students’ learning needs.
Classroom observation also showed that through observation, teacher educators could ask direct and purposeful questions of students who were inattentive. For example, Emily directed her students to solve the sum 435 + 325 using bundles of sticks during her lesson on teaching Grade 6 learners number bases (methodology module). As students worked on the assessment task, she called on a student to tell the class her answer when she noticed that said student was not paying attention:
Emily calls on Joy (not actual name): Tell the class what you had as an answer?
Student: Seven bundles of 5 sticks and eeeee …
Emily: Is that all? You see, I saw that you were not here; you were not paying attention.
Teacher educators adopted this strategy (observation) to gather information about the teaching and learning process, and on the basis of these data generated instructional modifications to address the learning needs of the students. However, there was no evidence of what the objectives of the observation assessment are, and assessment criteria were not made known to students. According to Chan (2009), to design a good direct observation assessment, the objectives of the observation assessment as well as assessment criteria should be made known to the students.
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students’ assessment scripts, with the aim of establishing the nature of feedback that teacher educators provide to students on their written work. Analysis of teacher educators’ course outlines was in order to aid the researcher in exploring:
1. Whether or not learning intentions (goals) and criteria for success are explicitly stated in the outline.
2. Evidence of how students were going to be assessed as presented in course outline.
7.4.1 Nature of teacher educators’ feedback on students’ written work
When an assessment is formatively used, it provides feedback to students and teachers about students’ learning and the teachers’ pedagogy. From the students’ point of view, the FA ‘script’
asks questions like: “What knowledge or skills do I aim to develop? How close am I now? and What do I need to do next?” (Brookhart, 2017, p. 1). This suggests that giving good feedback is one of the skills that teachers need to master in order to help students to find answers to these questions as part of a good FA. Therefore, teacher educators’ feedback and the form it takes is useful in assessing whether they used assessment formatively. Analysis of students' work provided information about the quality and nature of feedback that MTEs give on the students' written work.
Eshun, Bordoh, Bassaw, and Mensah (2014) stated that the presence of mere feedback is insufficient for judging the direction of learning. This viewpoint is an indication that the quality and nature of feedback are decisive aspects of FA to enhance learning. Literature on feedback suggests that teachers' feedback on assessment tasks should focus on students' strengths and weaknesses and must highlight areas that require improvement by the students (Black & Wiliam, 1998a; Brookhart, 2017). Thus, documents were reviewed to analyse and identify the nature of feedback that the MTEs provide on students’ quiz and assignment scripts. Analysis of students’
quiz and assignment scripts showed consistency in terms of the nature of teacher educators’
feedback on students’ written work. Four of the participating educators’ (Wilson, Sekyi, Peprah and Fordjour) feedback on students’ scripts shows the use of annotations: M – method mark, A – accuracy mark, and B – mark for correct result independent of the method mark, with a numerical value attached to the annotation for scoring their students' work. In contrast, Emily and Anani’s students’ scripts revealed that these teacher educators also make use of the numbers 1 and 0 for scoring: 1 for a correct response and 0 for an incorrect or wrong response to a question. In all
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cases, correct answers for the items (questions) are summed to produce the aggregate for the assessment task, which is then written in the top corner of the script. The analysis of the students scripts revealed that all the educators experienced difficulty in providing students with constructive feedback on their written work.
Samples of students’ scripts showing the nature of teacher educators’ feedback are presented Figure 7.1.
Wilson – Oswald College Peprah – PhilNeri College
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Anani – PhilNeri College Emily – Roberkeyta College Anani – PhilNeri College Emily – Roberkeyta College
Figure 7.1: Mathematics teacher educators’ feedback type on students’ assessment scripts.
This finding of the study is at variance with the literature. For example, the National Council of Curriculum and Assessment of Ghana (NaCCA, 2018) posits that feedback to students’ work by teachers should be written (descriptive) and emphasise the students’ strengths and weaknesses, as well as giving direction on the next steps to take in the learning process. In view of this, the researcher concludes that teacher educators’ knowledge and skills about the feedback aspect of FA is superficial since their feedback does not provide any comments or information to the students on where they are in their learning and what they are expected to do next to help them improve their learning.
7.4.2 Assessment issues captured in teacher educators’ course outlines
Table 7.3 shows a summary of assessment issues highlighted or stated on the teacher educators’
course outlines which were made available to the researcher. The ticks (√ ) indicate where there
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was evidence of such assessment principles captured on the teacher educators’ outline, while a dash (-) is an indication that such key issues were not captured in the outline.
Table 7.3: Key concepts related to teacher educators’ assessment practice
Learning goals Criteria for success Assessment method for the module
Sekyi √ √ √
Emily √ - -
Wilson √ √ √
Fordjour √ √ √
Anani √ - -
Peprah √ √ √
Review of teacher educators’ course outlines showed that all six educators recognise the importance of clarifying learning; therefore, goals for various learning were explicitly stated in their course outlines. It was also established that with the exception of two educators (Emily and Anani), criteria by which students’ work will be evaluated were stated in the outlines. The assessment criteria in the outline makes learning visible and help students to focus their energy on what is to be evaluated. An assessment instrument that has received a lot of attention lately is the
“ scoring rubrics”. Although scoring rubrics was not contained in the outline, there was evidence that students assessment tasks were marked using marking criteria or rubrics (see appendix I).
Teacher educators posit that copies of the outline were made available to each student. The researcher therefore concluded that students are made aware in advance what they are aiming to learn, and the indicators are appropriate to measure their learning progress and inform future learning.
Review of teacher educators’ course outlines also revealed that assessment of each module was in relation to the NTS, with a uniform weighting of 40% for FA, with 60% going into the summative end of semester examination. Four of the teacher educators (Sekyi, Peprah, Wilson and Fordjour) stated among the following as means by which their students were going to be assessed: group presentation, assignment, quizzes, and class exercises. Emily and Anani did not indicate a
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summary of assessment methods for their module in their outline, but there was alignment with the others in terms of the content coverage.