Project Material on; Influence of continuous assessment on the academic performance of school students in AMAC, Abuja

Project Material on; Influence of continuous assessment on the academic performance of school students in AMAC, Abuja

1.1              INTRODUCTION

The need to evaluate students after an effective teaching and learning process is necessary. To this end, educationist have introduced a method of evaluation known as continuous assessment, which forms an integral part of Nigerians new policy on education published in 1977 are revised in 1981, 1983, 1987 and 1989. The new policy stipulates among other things, the use of continuous assessment for students performances instead of using the orthodox single, end of course, of year, national or certificate examination. According to Nigerians policy on education (2001) the primary education will have the duration of six years, secondary education for six years which is further sub-divided into three years junior secondary school (JSS) and three years senior secondary schools (SSS) either vocational or academics. It enables students to acquire further knowledge and develop skills. The senior secondary school is for those willing to have a comprehensive with a core curriculum designed to broaden pupil’s knowledge and outlook and large number of elective subjects for a choice of career. These new policy started taking effect from1982/1983 academic sessions.

In 1976, universal free primary education (UPE) was introduced, further more, the new policy on education popularly known as the 6-3-3-4 systems came into being. To this end most state in Nigeria desired to train teachers to be able to meet up with new challenges in education but unfortunately enough trained teachers have not been available to man the education industry. The new policy on education (6-3-3-4) system was concerned itself with qualified and dedicated teachers because of the emphasis on the use of continuous assessment.

1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Continuous assessment is one of the new concepts introduced in the Nigeria educational system with the new national policy on education in short it is an interval part of the new system of education otherwise known as the 9-3-3-4 system. Assessment is an essential element in the educational process. A teacher must make some measurements of the extent to which the learning experiences of students have enabled them, achieve the stated objectives of the course of study.

Ohunche on Odili (2001) defines assessment as an involving the determination for the value and work of a thing implies making decision. The changing needs and attitude of individual children call for a continuous evaluation of such needs and trials in order to enable the children understand themselves better. Their teachers to improve on their teaching methods, the parents and guidance understood the children, so that educational vocational and personal social decision can be realistically made on them. Scholars have looked at the issues of the attitude of students towards assessment in educational system and have seen that the success education will ever offer is seriously tied to the facilities relevant to it. According to Peretomode (2007) stock of educational facilities in public school system in Nigeria is enormous even at the present state of their insufficient and inadequacy. They represent substantial financial outlay to the tax payer. Establishing new educational facilities is no longer that easy because of the current state of economic depression and constantly raising costs. Edem (2008) seeing the importance and position influence of school facilities to educational achievement of students said. It is the duty of the ministry or the board of education to make furniture’s, equipment, books and expendable materials available to schools. Their inadequacy constitutes another source of frustration and disillusion among teachers. African leaders earnestly desire good education programmes for their people, but in many cases the resources are so merger that little progress can be made.           

According to Inyong Abia (2002) continuous assessment are the pivot on which the wheel of teaching and learning process rotates. As cited by Inyang Abia (2004) the use of continuous assessment is the most significant aspect of influence for students effective performance. According to Bayo (2005) the availability of continuous assessment in learning process have the potency for motivating and focusing learners attention on the lesson being presented.

According to Obi (2003), a good continuous assessment can make the following contributions. Promote the development of ready skills and encourage long term habits through ready, listening and etc those learning habits from the key to continuous success in school and to the personal encouragement of leisure this throughout line. Assessment is not merely testing (Osokoya, 2006), it is a process through which the quality of an individual work or performance is judged (Mwebaza, 2010). In relation to school setting. Greaney (2001) defines assessment as any procedure or activity that is designed to collect information about the knowledge, attitude, or skills of the learner or group of learners. Thus, in the context of education, assessment can be defined as a predetermined process through which the quality of a student’s performance in the three domains of educational objectives (cognitive, affective, and psychomotor) is judged. Assessment of students learning of curriculum contents in the area of knowledge, skills, and values is a major pre-occupation of many educational reforms. This is because results from such assessment not only provide feedbacks regarding the educational progress of students but remain the authentic yardstick for gaining the effectiveness of the teacher, the quality of instruction and in part the functionality of any curriculum reform. Continuous assessment as an assessment carried out in an ongoing process (Mwebaza, 2010) is an objective judgment considered an important part of structured assessment purposely designed and administered to enable the teacher to evaluate some aspect of a students learning of a specific time.

A number of characterizations of continuous assessment exist in the literature. According to Agawam cited in Mwebaza (2010) continuous assessment not simply continuous testing. Continuous assessment does not solely depend on formal tests. Continuous assessment is more than giving a test; it involves every decision made by the teacher in class to improve students achievement. Continuous assessment as only a part of the field of educational evaluation is a method of evaluating the process and achievement of students in educational institutions (Yoloye, 2006). This means that continuous assessment could be used to predict future student’s performance in the final examinations and the possible success of individuals at the work place or on a particular job. Continuous assessment is a formative evaluation procedure concerned with finding out in a systematic manner, all gains that a student’s has made in terms of knowledge, attitudes and skills after a given set of learning experience (Ogunniyi, 2004). A more comprehensive definition of continuous assessment is given by Ezewu and Okoye (2007). They see continuous assessment within the educational context as a systematic and objective process of determining the extent of a student’s performance and all the expected changes in his behaviour from the day he enter into a course of study in a continuous and progressive manner to the end of such a course of study and judicious accumulation of all pieces of information derived from this purpose, with a view to using them to guide and shape the students in his learning from time to time and to serve as bases for important decision about the child.         

Continuous assessment is defined as a mechanism whereby the final grading of a students in the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains of behaviour takes account in a systematic way, of all his performances during a given period of schooling. Such an assessment involves a great variety of modes of evaluation for the purpose of guiding and improving the learning and performance of the student (Nigeria, Federal Ministry of Education). Continuous assessment is an ongoing diagnostic and school based process that uses a variety of assessment tool to measure learners performance (Zambia Ministry of Education, 2007). Continuous assessment could also be defined as a mechanism whereby the final grading of learners progress in the cognitive, affective.

1.3 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Science educators have advocated the need for Continuous Assessment as an integral part of science evaluation programme (Hambury, 2005). However, there is no empirical data to support the effectiveness of the Continuous Assessment system in promoting learning and to show whether or not the performance of students will increase on exposure to more C.A. As C.A has potency to motivate learners to learn. Vroom (2004) defined achievement as a product of motivation and ability. According to him behaviour is not only just influenced by ability but also by how much the individual wants to do certain events and by how much they expect they will do it. So when students are being examined they are motivated to work hard. Therefore, the problem of this study is to find out if exposure of students to many Continuous Assessments has significant effect on the final examination. More assessment means more motivation and thus better achievement, but sometimes human behaviour may change. Many assessments may mean more stress on the part of the student.

 

In some studies it is shown that there are gender-related differences in learning (Jegede, 2009 Mari, 2001 and Ajagun, 2008). This research uses the two gender and gave them same teaching and assessment techniques, so adequate step is taken to remove any gender difference in the administration of the treatments. This research work also tries to find out if gender has any effects in the administration of Continuous Assessment to students.

 

What is not known conclusively is the consistency of Continuous Assessment scores to examination scores. Odili L. (2005), in his study, asserts that some Continuous Assessment scores are not consistent with examination scores since they show little or no significant correlations. Ihiegbulem H. (2004), however, found out that a substantially high and significant degree of positive relationship exists between Continuous Assessment and examination scores. One of the purposes of this study therefore, is to determine whether there exists a relationship between Continuous Assessment and examination scores. There is the problem of correlating Continuous Assessment with actual examination scores for instance; it is not uncommon to find a student having very high score in continuous assessment and extremely low score in the final examination (Hassan, 2007). It is hoped that the results from this study will clarify all the stated problems.

1.4     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The objectives of this study is out lined below, this researcher wants to find:

1. The factors affecting the implementation of continuous assessment in selected secondary schools in Lagos State.
2. If the school teachers are adequately equipped to participate natively in the implementation of the continuous assessment programme of then state government.
3. Teachers know the difference between continuous assessment and the traditional system of testing students.

1.5  RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. Do teachers assess students learning outcomes after teaching?
2. Does practice of continuous assessment enhance teacher’s effective evaluation of students?
3. Do teachers keep continuous assessment record?
4. Do teachers use varieties of evaluation instrument?
5. Does continuous assessment helps in improving performance of students in economics?

1.6     STATEMENT OF HYPOTHESIS

1. Ho: There is no significant difference in the mean academic achievement scores of students exposed to Continuous Assessment and those assessed using final examination only in chemistry.

Hi: There is significant difference in the mean academic achievement scores of students exposed to Continuous Assessment and those assessed using final examination only in chemistry.

2. Ho: There is no significant difference between the mean academic achievement scores of male and female students exposed to two sets of Continuous Assessments in chemistry (that is the first experimental group E1).

Hii: There is significant difference between the mean academic achievement scores of male and female students exposed to two sets of Continuous Assessments in chemistry (that is the first experimental group E1).

3. Ho: Continuous Assessments doesn’t have any significant role in the performance of a student in a class

Hiii: Continuous Assessments does have any significant role in the performance of a student in a class

1.7 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Education development sustains the growth of the entire action. We need adequate assessment method that would show exactly what on