Improving grade 10 learners’ academic performance in accounting using principles of assessment for learning.

Abstract

This study aimed to design a strategy to improve Grade 10 learners’ academic performance in accounting using the principles of assessment for learning. Assessment for learning is any assessment whose design and practice are designed and prioritized to promote learners’ learning (Flórez & Sammons, 2013). There are several strategies that AFL offers, and the study used the following strategies: selfregulation, self-assessment, peer assessment, descriptive feedback, learner-centred approach, dialogic approach, creative and critical thinking, and curriculum alignment. Furthermore, in this study, using the abovementioned strategies, AFL was used to improve Grade 10 learners' academic performance in accounting classrooms. The study explored the challenges that led to poor academic performance in Grade 10 accounting learners. These challenges were that teachers mainly focused on grading rather than the process of assessing itself, the use of a more teacher-centred approach, lack of compliance with CAPS/ assessment policy document, lack of dialogue, and the wide gap between pedagogical content knowledge and accounting practice. The study further generated a strategy to respond to these challenges using the AFL principles. Therefore, the study adopted Critical Emancipatory Research (CER) as a theoretical lens, mainly due to its critical commitment to confronting social oppression and challenging well-established ways of thinking that frequently limit learners’ potential. In this study, CER enabled co-researchers and me to work together consciously towards mastering critically challenging and changing systems that routinely oppress them. Through CER, the study embraced multiple perspectives and negotiated meaning in formulating a strategy to respond to the identified challenges. The study further employs Participatory Action Research (PAR) as a methodological approach involving all community stakeholders. It was applied because it is transformation-orientated and grounded in an emancipatory agenda. The research team and co-researchers identified the challenges faced by the teachers and learners in the classroom during teaching and learning of accounting, and through group discussions and reflections, solutions and strategies that could assist co-researchers in acknowledging their objectives were generated. Critical Discourse Analysis was used to analyse data generated on how discourse structures reproduce power and dominance relations in society. Thus, CDA is an analytical research approach that critically analyses speech, text, and language. A person or group of dominant tendencies review critical discourse analysis trying to explain a social reality and have a specific goal in mind, which was done to suggest potential strategies and solutions that could be created, accepted, and modified to address the issues the coresearchers encountered effectively.