Kurebwa mercy thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for doctor of philosophy

APPENDICES

I am a Doctorate learner with the Zimbabwe Open University .I am carrying out “A Study of Assessment Problems in Zimbabwes’ Primary Schools with special reference to Gweru District Primary Schools. The findings will be relevant to college curriculum developers, school staff development programmes, and policy makers and may lead to changes in primary school assessment methods.

The findings will be relevant to college curriculum developers, school staff development programmes, and policy makers and may lead to changes in primary school assessment methods.
I would like to hear your views concerning the topic under study. You are assured that data collected from this research will be treated confidentially and will be solely used for the purposes of the research. Your names will be concealed in the research report. The information you give will not be availed to parents, other teachers, supervisors or any other people. Participation in this research should be purely voluntary .You have the right to withdraw at any time from the research if you feel like doing so.
This interview is going to take 30minutes and will be recorded using a tape recorder. Once the interviews are completed the findings will be availed to you.
1Research Question

What sort assessment skills do classroom teachers have to enable them carryout classroom assessment?

Interview questions.

1.1 How do you define assessment?

1.2 What role does assessment play in the education of pupils?

1.3 What do you consider to be the core purpose of assessment?

1.4 What do you consider when setting classroom tests?

1.5 Are objectives necessary in setting classroom tests?

1.6 What exposure on assessment were you offered by teachers’ colleges?

1.7 Do you think assessment should be core to teacher training?

1.8 What assessment techniques do you use?

1.9 Do you think you have the competence to carry out assessment?

1.10 What statistics have you used to analyse assessment data?

1.11How do you select you test items?

1.12 How do you mark essays?

1.13 Which domain of objectives do you concentrate on when assessing?

2.1 According to you, what is the importance of assessment?

2.2 What sort of assessment do you think is important for the benefit of classroom learning?

2.3 Has the Zimbabwean education system changed its assessment procedures since the colonial era? If yes /no, say why this was/was not necessary?

2.4 When is it necessary to carry out assessment?

2.5 How is school effectiveness judged and how does this impact on assessment?

2.6 Which groups of people are favoured by assessment practices in Zimbabwe? Justify your answer.

3 Research Question

How do classroom procedures influence classroom assessment?
Interview Questions

3.1 What policies are in place, in your school, for performing classroom assessment?

3.2 Are there any problems with regard to implementation of assessment the policies? Justify your answer.

3.3 Suggest ways in which you think assessment should be improved?

3.4 How often do you carry out assessment? Is that the requirement of policy?

3.5 What problems do you meet in carrying out assessment?

4.1How do examinations impact on the setting of tests at class level?

4.2 Do you think teachers teach for examinations? Justify your answer.

4.3 How would you define quality assessment?

4.4 How can quality learning be achieved through assessment?

4.5 How does assessment contribute to school effectiveness?

4.6 What is school effectiveness?

4.7 Why does some teachers copy test items from past examination papers?

Interview Questions

5.2 What resources do you need for assessment?

5.3 How are resources impacting on your classroom assessment procedures?

5.4 Do you think adequate time and finances are allocated for assessment? Can you make any other comments with regard to assessment in your classroom?

A: I think you should define first what assessment is.

A: We do but we just want to find out your own definition.

A: Okay I think we usually use tests to carry out assessment.

We also give home-works.

Q: Do you have continuous assessment for the practical subjects?

A: No.

A: To check progress.

To see what the child is able to do and what they are not able to do.

To check if the concept has been fully grasped by the child.

For effective learning and teaching because if you have assessed, you can evaluate whether or not you have met your objectives so it promotes effectiveness.

Q: Were you trained on assessment in college?

A: I don’t know whether we were trained or not because we were taught that we should record, we must have these IPR, Individual Progress Record, whereby you record the child’s marks so that you can check progress

A: Yes.

A: The concepts that the children have covered.

The level of my pupils; are they above average, below or average.

The test must be fairly balanced to suit the weak, the average and the fast learners.

A: It doesn’t favour anyone because when I set a test, I am just questioning the concepts that I have taught. And the test is balanced. The ones below average should be at least able to get half because the first 25 questions will be easy.

A: Mostly tests.

A: Yes, it’s there; and how much you stick to the policy will determine your rating on your performance appraisal.

A: Yes.

A: Here and there, for example we can have disturbances here and there, such that by the end of the week you might not have covered everything you were supposed to, so you find that it can be difficult to test. Sometimes we can test but we will not have covered all the concepts.

Another problem can arise if the teachers are over-controlled. Someone might pretend to have an up to date record which is not really supported by the work on the ground.

Q: Is it true that teachers create marks sometimes because of these policies?

A: (laughter) it’s true.

A: Not really.

A: Because of that creation.

A: The policy must be followed whether we are disturbed or not so sometimes you end up creating marks so that you do not get into trouble.

A: Yes because the standard is the number of exercises, the quality does not really matter.

A: Obviously cognitive (chorus), because even those who set public examinations have a tendency of ignoring them too.

A: I assess them holistically; because in music it’s not possible for you to separate one domain from another. Once you affect the other domain, you cannot achieve anything. They need to be sharp, because they might need to compose and recall a few lines and also the affective domain; a musician has to be able to communicate to an audience even without saying anything, just the attitude. They also dance and the like.

A: I think it is because of the nature of our education which does not demand much of the other domains. They just want these objective answers like you see, the multiple choice, they sort of want just the answer. Whether or not the person is able to apply the knowledge; it doesn’t seem to be necessary at this level.

The other problem is the teacher pupil ratio which is about 1:45 in this school. For you to fit everything, it’s just not practical

In terms of the affective domain, the teachers’ morale is just down there. The salaries are just frustrating. So the teachers come to school loaded with other stresses and they pass it on to the children. It’s only natural because children are children, they are not young adults. So usually when assessing, even orally, we just move with those who are eager, we don’t have the time or energy to dwell on other matters

A: Well at College, we did some sort of a crash programme. They never really dwelt on these other domains so we never thought much of them even after graduation. It was still trial and error for some of us since we were the first group to graduate from that particular college.

A: Sometimes the time factor. We have timetables, such that by the end of the week you must make sure that you have covered A,B,C,D and sometimes disturbances make it impossible. There are many subjects to teach.

A: We use percentages.

A: We have forgotten them.

A: Well maybe because it is a school policy to say that we should analyse data using percentages. Everything that we write we change to percentages

All these standard deviation and complicated stuff, most people are actually not aware of how to work them out, and they would rather not trouble themselves with that since they are not required to do so. And we generally have a phobia for Maths.

Q: How do you mark essays in you classrooms?

A: We use the ZIMSEC marking guide.

A: Actually when we are marking compositions, we mark them by impression such that when you get to a shop, you prefer that dress to the other because it has impressed you. So the marks are given under impression and also orthography. Now under orthography, we look at the grammar, the punctuation and spelling. And on impression you are checking to see if the pupil has actually written according to the demands of the question, whether they have included all the facts that are required. So it’s like out of 10 how much has the child impressed you and has she/he followed the question. Under orthography, if there are too many errors… half a mark, again out of 10, is deducted for each error.

A: I like it because it shows me how kids are performing and which areas I must stress, or improve on.

A: Yes they do.

A: It depends on how you do it because every fortnight when I give them a test, I change the group and every child wants to sit in Group 1. If he/she doesn’t perform well this week, he knows that next week we are going to write another test and they work harder. And there is a spirit of competition as well.

A: Every child has a subject which they are good at; they will always be a chance to be the best.

I also noted something, I teach the last class. Even if they fail in class, they can do something out there. My kids are very good at swimming and they can play Marimba so there is always somewhere they well excel in, the challenge is just that we concentrate on the intellect of the children and might not realise what the child is really good at. Otherwise every child is good at something.

Q: Is there any relationship between school effectiveness and assessment?

A: To a certain extent. We teach mainly in English here which a second language is for many pupils. So at home, if they speak English fluently, it is because of the assessment and the parents might feel that the teaching is effective. Also we have a reading programme here whereby the child has to read to their parent and I think most parents like that.

Generally people look at the Grade 7 results and they actually want the breakdown of units to say, how many 1’s, how many 9’s and so on. This itself can however, pose problems since teachers will be tempted into drilling the pupils so that the results will be good, to get many 1s. Drilled pupils usually have problems in high school, and these others who were thought to be mediocre can just suddenly excel in high school.

Q: Can you say teachers teach for examinations?

A: Yes because in a way, that’s how they are rated whether they are good or not.

A: Yes, we can say that.

A: In a way, because people take the Grade 7 exam as a yardstick. When you are asked to set a test they say, set as ZIMSEC! This might not be really necessary. But because people see it as standard, everyone wants their child to grow with the standard believing that they will not encounter problems at the end.

Well high schools will always want those who have performed excellently so hence we teach for examinations.

Q: If you were to make a choice, would you say it’s fair to teach for examinations?

A: I think it’s actually unfair because that was done to me in high school. After completing my ‘A’s, I went for an interview. At work I had to start afresh as if I had never gone to school because I knew nothing!

A: It has maybe good results.

The assessment should look at all those other domains which were mentioned not just cognitive so that we build a wholistic individual, someone who can actually fit into the society.

Q: Why do other teachers copy questions from other schools’ past exam papers when asked to set an exam?

A: In the rural areas, there is a serious shortage of resources including text books so sometimes it might be difficult to come up with new questions when setting tests all the time, so sometimes doing this will help expose the child to many questions in preparation for the final exam in Grade 7.

Some teachers are just lazy to set questions and will just copy from others.

Sometimes you want to meet the deadline, you just copy, and then submit to the authorities and you are done.

A: Greatly… because that pupil teacher interaction..haa..its reduced if you have got a bigger load. You cannot actually pay attention to every kid. Remember in primary we teach 12 subjects including the co-curricular activities and for you to be so good. You just live out those that are not examined at Grade 7. You can concentrate on these other subjects which are useless after all.

A: Yes, we have no problems even the books are enough. But in social studies there is a bit of a shortage, they have to share. This can pose problems because one child may stay too long with the book, and when the test comes, it can be unfair on the other pupils.

A: Assessment sometimes creates hassles, whether on the teacher or on the pupil, when it is done unfairly.

Sometimes you might not cover all the concepts that you intended due to disturbances beyond your control. This becomes a problem if the paper has already been set and it’s unfair on the pupils because they will see some things for the first time in the exam.

Sometimes the teacher can be labelled useless, say if the pupils have not performed well, like it pounces on you the teacher.

As a teacher in the class I must be given the freedom to assess accordingly. When coming up with policies, let us sit together so that we come up with a policy which will be implementable.

I think assessment is a good thing since it will help you to see the ability of the child in order for you to remediate the child as well as maybe altering your way of teaching to help the children.

Assessment in some cases creates cheating especially on the side of the teacher due to harsh policies, so that they can meet the KRAs and not be stigmatised.

It’s good to assess so that I give remedial work to the children.

A: None, from as far as I can remember except when you came and presented a paper on testing.

A: No, not really.

A: More textbooks should be given to primary schools to improve comprehension skills of children.

The practical aspect should be included when assessing pupils not just concentrating on objective answering.

Involvement of teachers in policy making, it is better not to force down policies in the throats of teachers.

A: Something to deal with strengths and weaknesses of a situation. I think assessment is checking for progress, Assessment is something e….. the activity whereby people take up certain task to find out if there are problems or no problems. So it is evaluating e.g. whatever is going on in the classroom.

A: Helps to find strength and weaknesses of a learning situations, helps to check the progress to see if you are going in the right direction or whatever, helps to correct where we are going off

A: Yes, we were taught to do assessment. We were encouraged to draft our schemes of work and make comments. We assess our pupils whether they were progressing or meeting difficulties and those kids with problems we find a way to help them. We note that through assessment.

A: We use test, daily exercises to check whether pupils have understood what we teach.

A: Yes because Eee – an objective will guide you as to whether you achieved what you want to do.

A: We concentrate on cognitive domain.

A: We are concentrating on three domains. We teach physical education which is the psychomotor domain. We teach religious education where we test the moral values Eee there is the issue of ZIMSEC. At grade seven year courses, they centre mainly on the cognitive domain. Some of the domains are not taken care e.g. at the end of the seven year course.

We teach physical education once a time. That is when we release the children to the physical education teacher. This is because we don’t waste our time on physical education which not tested by ZIMSEC.

Q: Do you think you have the competence to do assessment?

A: I think I have the competence when you are given a class to teach eeh surely you should be able to assess, so that you will be to see where your children stand in terms of what ever is taught. Also I think I am able to assess because when you are in your class you able to assess the attitudes of your pupils by merely looking. We are able to asses, we continue to have problems and not all objectives are assessed.

A: Averages and percentages.

A: Some records are not accurate; we create marks to please the head. Some records are accurate; we record the tests we give so that the head can cross-check the records to see if they are corresponding.

A: We don’t consider any ethics.

A: We are not aware of that we need to consider any ethics. There are some things, teachers do not know such as statistics and ethics and yet they claim to know assessment.

A: Eee – we give tests monthly and at the end of the term

Yes – we do have laid down rules that is monthly we must assess our children and at the end of the term.

Q: Do we have any problems with assessment policies?

A: Yes.Policies are difficult to implement.

A: Yes those who are intelligent because they are the ones who get higher marks unlike those who are not able , and those who are intelligent are favoured because they show interest in writing the test, the backward are not interested because they know they are going to fail. Even theZIMSEC favoures intelligent pupils the set the same tests for the intelligent and the back ward pupils.ZIMSEC just sets the same test for the intelligent and the backward.

Teachers mainly use summative assessments.

Q: Do we have any written policies?

A: Policies are not written down. They are just internalized.

A: Yes, almost every term