Teachers’ views of their assessment practices.

Abstract

Assessment remains one of the critical issues in teaching and learning. It is one of the important tools used by education practitioners to monitor students’ progress, predict students’ learning, guide students’ learning, and evaluate learning. Reliability, fairness, the degree of difficulty, and success are principles of effective assessment. Recent and past studies have revealed assessment approaches that lead to effective learning. The challenge of assessment lies within these principles and approaches. However, most teachers find it difficult to consider principles when they design assessment activities. This study aimed to explore the views of teachers on their own assessment and their understanding of fairness, success, and level of difficulty in designing assessments. The research targeted urban schools in the Umlazi district (Maphundu circuit). One hundred participants from five schools voluntarily participated in the questionnaire part of the study. Interview participants were randomly selected from these 100 teachers. The aim of this empirical qualitative study was to find a common understanding of assessment across the grades in terms of fairness, reliability, success and level of difficulty. Data was generated through questionnaires, interviews and document analysis. This revealed the role played by teachers’ qualifications, enrolment and assessment approaches. The information from the documents clarified the principles of assessment. The results depicted that teachers viewed their assessment practices as effective. However, the challenge of over-crowding and a lack of proper in-service training was found to be problematic in executing fair assessment practices. The study revealed that teachers found assessment to be a continuously challenging component in education. The study concluded that any change in assessment practice should be based on teachers’ empirical knowledge.