Factors Affecting The Implementation Of Continuous Assessment

Introduction

In order to reform the educational system, the Federal Government of Nigeria in 2004, reviewed the national policy on education. One of the high points in the policy instrument was the emphasis laid on continuous assessment in the various level of education. Since one of the functions of a school is the certification of the individual learner under its embrace (Idowu and Esere, 2009). To effectively carryout this role, assessment of one kind or the other is a prerequisite. Assessment is a means where by the teacher obtains information about knowledge gains, behavioural changes and other aspects of the development of learners (Oguneye 2002). It involves the deliberate effort of the teacher to measure the effect of the instructional process as well as the overall effect of school learning on the behavior of students.

Continuous assessment was introduced in schools following the adoption of 6-3-3-4 system of education. The intention was to make assessment of the learner more reliable, valid, objective and comprehensive. Since the emphasis is now on the ability of learning, it becomes necessary to involved and use of assessment that will be consider all aspects of learning.

Before continuous assessment was introduced in secondary school, the old system of assessment was formative, which is examination was done only at the end of the term work. In some cases, students were not examined on what they have been taught until the end of the year. The summative system of assessment only made use of class test, while take home assignment and project where hardly used in assessing a learner. In the old system only cognitive domain was assessed, that is only the intellectual ability was examined. The affective domain, interest, attitude, feeling, emotions of the learners where ignored in the assessment. The psychomotor domain was not considered.

It had no feedback mechanism that reported on the pupil’s area of weakness. More so, it gave scanty in formation in form of terminal report sheets to parents which does not really portray the child’s overall performance and it usually lead to examination malpractice as strong emphasis are laid on the passing to promote.

In Nigeria, Educational planners and Administrators are now more conscious than even before of their role in the nationwide scheme of curriculum innovation. Not only have new courses been introduced and new contents injected into existing subjects, a fundamental change in the system of assessment of students performance has also emerged through the formalization of continuous assessment as a major component of evaluation process (Oyesola, 1986; Idowu and Esere 2009)

In order to assess the new educational system, one policy that cuts across all educational levels throughout Nigeria is that on continuous assessment. In section 1 of the National policy of Education (Federal Government of Nigeria, 2004), which deals with the philosophy and goals of education in Nigeria, paragraph 9 (g) states that “educational assessment and evaluation shall be liberalized by their being based in whole or in part of continuous assessment of the progress of the individual”. This statement is well amplified in subsequent sections of the document dealing with primary Education (section 4), Secondary Education (section 5), Tertiary Education and finally in Section 12 which deals with planning, Administration and supervision of Education.

The repeated emphasis being placed on continuous assessment is a clear evidence of its importance. The national steering committee on continuous assessment in Nigeria schools led be professor Yoloye regards continuous assessment as method of ascertaining what a student gains from schooling in terms of knowledge, industry and character development taking into account all his / her performances in tests, assignments, projects and other educational activities during a given period of term, year, or during the entire period of an educational level (Ipaye, 1995). It is also a method of using the recorded performance of each pupil’s to help him or her improve on his or her achievement through guidance.

According to Ezewu and Okoye (1986), continuous assessment refers to a systematic and objective process of determining the extent of a student’s performance in all the expected changes in his behavior, from the day he enters upon 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 student and to serve as a basis for making important decision about5 the child. In other words, continuous assessment should be systematic, comprehensive, cumulative and guidance oriented.

Affective continuous reduces such incidence as do or die affair, owing to the fact that assessment is summative, learners are tempted doing everything within their reach to ensure their promotion to the next class thereby increasing the rate of examination malpractice. Continuous assessment emphasizes more on comprehensive information on the cognitive, affective and psychomotor measures of an individual if well implemented. This will also make learning more meaningful to the children and essentially for independent living and meaningful contribution of effective life of the society.

There are loads of works for the teachers in addition of the demand on this time. Despite these heavy responsibilities necessitated by the teaching professions or the teachers; calling the teacher is expected to be physically, mentally and professionally prepared to be accepted in operating the system (Greg, 1997).

The old system of assessment was single and teachers then never encouraged the implementation of continuous assessment because to them it is burdensome and time consuming. Also, there is the problem of unqualified personnel to implement and operate the continuous assessment method. Judging from general comment from parent and society, it is apparent that the continuous assessment system of education has some factors that affecting its implementation.

Therefore, in order to have an effective implementation of continuous assessment, teachers should acquire skills and utilize the results of such assessment in improving the school curriculum as well. It is the writers’ view that teachers must be knowledgeable in interpreting the scores and grade awarded to students using the various measuring instruments, demonstrate competence in the construction of tests, questionnaire, checklists rating scales etc. for assessing the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains or learning outcome. Nwana (1979), Ipaya (1982); Nkpa (1984) etc.

The success of the implementation of continuous assessment programme depends on other factors such as the government should appreciate and understand the mode of assessment by providing as much as possible materials, equipments etc. to school, particularly in the issuance of the junior secondary school certificate and the senior secondary school certificate even the primary six leaving certificate by head masters and principals.

According to the official handbook from the Federal Ministry of Education, continuous assessment may be viewed as a method of finding out what the student has gained from learning activities in terms of knowledge, thinking and reasoning, character development and industry (Education Evaluation Unit, 1980). This new appraisal technique is designed to systematically cover all students performance in class tests, home assignment, projects, interviews, questionnaires and other school activities, weekly, monthly or periodically – throughout the entire duration of the students course. The handbook also stipulates among other things, that the accurate records of these data should be kept for further use for aiding the student’s further development, finding necessary information to parents and guardians and for the general guidance purposes.

Literature Review

This chapter deals with the result of some related literature and the review was done under the following subheading;

1.    The concept of continuous assessment

2.    Reasons for continuous assessment in secondary schools

3.    The objectives of continuous assessment

4.    Modes of assessment

5.    Problems of implementation

6.    Factors affecting the effective implementation of continuous assessment

7.    Summary.

The Concept of Continuous Assessment

Assessment as the word implies, is the systematic collection, review and use of information about educational programme to improve students’ performance. Continuous assessment has being defined in several ways. Ipaye (1992) defined Continuous assessment as a deliberate and periodic assessment throughout the course and take into account progress towards the goals as well as success in reaching it. Therefore, continuous assessment could be the building up of a cumulative judgment about the performance of each pupils and a continual updating of teachers judgment above their pupils.

Federal Ministry of Education (1985), defines continuous assessment as a method of finding out what the pupils has gained from learning activities in terms of knowledge, thinking and reasoning, character development and industry.

Continuous assessment here implies that assessment must reflect all the domains in an individual in the school. These domains are cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains, so that at the end of the students schooling, the student should be able to show the desirable attitude required for a person who have been assessment as systematic, comprehensive, cumulative and guidance oriented. Equally, Nworgu (1992) agreed with FME when he stated that assessment is the systematic and cumulative recording of pupil’s progress in all aspect of his development and education from the moment upon which he starts a course of study until the end of the programme as a means of evaluating and guiding his educational programme and development. From this view, we may see that continuous assessment is geared towards achieving and overall development of pupils. This method of evaluation has the advantages of encouraging students to study hard. In another development, Akinboye (1990) describes the aspect of continuous assessment as the development and utilization of a number of tools such as observational techniques, interviewing tests in their various format, achievement aptitude, intellectual ability tests and personality, inventories, appraisal experiments, data analysis and interpretation. He maintained that assessment tools are used basically for information generation and collection. When such information is collected from time to time, continuous assessment is the recorded score against each student after being assessed.

Similarly, Denga (2003) viewed continuous assessment as the best systematic method of evaluating a child’s performance without the psychological strains and stresses of one-shot examination. This means that the slow but continuous process of evaluation has a greater advantage over the one-shot examination because students are relieved of anxiety, confusion and errors attributed in one-shot examination.

Continuous assessment is the periodic and systematic method of assessing and evaluating students learning achievements and attributes. Information collected from continuous behaviors of students help the teachers to have a better understanding of the strength and weakness in addition to providing a comprehensive picture of each student over a period of time. Such information will help in education and vocational placement of students.

Ndigwe and Nwigwe (1983), stress that efficiency in teaching occurs or takes place only when the teacher has some set of objective to achieve. According to them, the success of his teaching depends on how far and well those objectives are attended. They are attained when the students acquires the behaviors the teacher want them to acquire. The teacher can only know that they acquired such behavior by asking them to perform which is a form of assessment technique. The cumulative nature of the student’s performance in these tasks provides continuous assessment.

Adesina (1984) explained that writing test, oral question, discussion, and project reports, class work, take home assignments are considered as continuous assessment. Therefore, students record of work need to be kept, this is not something dramatically new as Adesina put i. thus, it simply involves a consciousness on the part of the teacher that there is need for the constant feedback from the students, it draws attention at the course to the weakness of one test group or groups of test in teaching requires constant feedback, if teaching is to realize its optimum value.

Tayole (1984) defines continuous assessment as a method of evaluating progress and achievement of the students in educational institutions. It aims at getting truest possible picture of each student’s ability at the same time helping each student develop his or her ability to the fullest. It is a method whereby the final grading of students takes account in a systematic way of their performance during a given period of schooling. The above definition implies that the learner’s achievements are measured using cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains.  Okoye (1994) explained continuous assessment as a means of getting more and better information about the student and using this as the course develop. It implies that the teaching focus is shifted towards developing the full potential of each individual to his/ her fullest level of human work.

Segun (1994) agreed with Okoye when he stated that continuous assessment is a way of recording the student’s progress without using examination. It depends on carefully kept assignments of the child’s work throughout his course, building up gradually into profile of his performance. Considerable, thought should go into what is been assessed and into the method of assessment so that all the child’s skill, intellectual and literacy which examination normally measures will be assessed properly.

As far as the teacher is concerned, teaching provides him with the feedback on his own teaching and accuracy. For example, assessment of how well each student is doing where his/ her particular weakness and strength lies, gives him fairly reliable indication of the child.

Reason for Continuous Assessment in Secondary School

The national policy on education (N P E 1998) proposes that educational assessment/ evaluation should be based on continuous assessment in all levels of educational system. The mode of evaluation of student’s ability or performance is to replace the former one-shot summative evaluation which used to be administered on students at the end of each year for the purpose of promotion to the next class.

Similarly, at the completion of a programme study on external evaluation body administered another such examination for the purpose of certification. Although in the old system, many teachers conduct weekly or monthly tests and the result of such test were never incorporated in the final grading for any purpose. This single examination among other irregularities associated with it, has often been cued to the cognitive aspect of the student learning to the neglect of the manipulative skills attitudes and values which the student must have acquired during the period of learning.

Nworgu (1992) pointed out that, not only federal government is concerned in this one-shot evaluation of students performance, but has taken steps to rectifying the anomaly through the introduction of continuous assessment in the school system. According to the National Policy on Education (N.P.E 1981) provides that evaluation of student’s progress be liberalized by basing them in whole or in part of continuous assessment. The document recommended that there will be no formal examination at the end of the first six years of primary education. Certification at this level will be based on continuous assessment. The junior secondary school leaving certificate will be based on continuous assessment while the senior secondary school leaving certificate will be based on a national examination with continuous assessment.

N.P.E 1985 document on continuous assessment released by the federal ministry of education, science and technology (F.M.E 1985), stated some reasons for advocating continuous assessment as follow;

An assessment procedure which takes into the learner’s performance throughout the entire period of schooling is likely to be more valid and more indicative of a learner overall ability than a single examination. The readiness of the teachers to introduce innovations into their teaching is often frustrated by the fact that a final external examination does not take account of such innovation. In a continuous assessment situation, teacher’s assessment of performance of students on such innovation can become a part of the final assessment. The teachers would therefore be encouraged to be flexible and innovative. It has been suggested that one reason for such a high incidence of examination is so crucial in deciding the future of the candidate that the temptation to ensure success by all means (do or die) is very high. It is believed that if continuous assessment is employed, this problem would become considerable reduced.

The Objective of Continuous Assessment

F.M.E (1985) handbook on continuous assessment stated the objectives of schools assessment programme as;

1. To have something to report to the parents and to some interested other.

2. To identify levels of ability, achievement and effective development for values individuals and groups of student.

3. To diagnose learning difficulties in individual and strength and weakness in group performance for the purpose of improving instrument.

4. To assess gains in achievement on co-operatively developed standardized instrument in the evaluation of some locally introduced innovative programme.

5. To assess special attitude on interest of students for counseling purposes.

National Policy on Education (N.P.E 2004) stated some objectives for introducing continuous assessment in Nigerian school. They include;

1.    To liberalized educational assessment and evaluation

2.    To replace the assessment of one-shot examination with a system that takes into account the learners performance throughout the entire period of schooling, so that the result will be more valid and indicative of learners ability.

3.    To give the teachers the opportunity to participate in the final assessment of his pupils.

4.    To encourage teachers to introduced innovation in their assessment of people’s performance. Such innovations will become a part of the student’s final assessment.

5.    To enable the use of assessment result for purpose of guidance of students learning and preparation for a career.

6.    To enable the teacher regularly improves his own performance from the feedback he gets from assessment.

Modes of Assessment

1.    Teacher – made test; Teacher made test are those tests constructed, administered and scored by the classroom teachers or possibly a committee of several teachers in the school (Ibanga 1989). The primary intention of these teachers remains to measure the progress or achievement of the learner in respective subject matter content area.

2.    Project method; Castle (1965) explained project method as a co-operative study of a real life situation by a class or even by a whole school, under the guidance of the teachers. According to him, project aims at;

a.     Bringing students into real contact with the activities of the school neighborhood.

b.    Presenting students with real life problems, which they solve by thinking and working together.

c.     Developing further skills and new knowledge in the school subjects while tackling the project.

3.    Observation Instrument method. Allason(1992) showed that this instrument is an important instrument that can provide useful picture of non-cognitive behavior assessment of a learner, it is systematic in nature. It is the most structured and objective method of collecting non-cognitive information. This instrument is specifically designed to be used in the observation of a child as well as recording pre-determined events or traits with the aid of an observational schedules prepared for the purpose of assessment.

4.    Interview. An interview is one of the non-test methods of appraising the non-cognitive behavior, which is designed to obtain information through distance or face-to-face interaction with the interviewee.

5.    Take home assignment. Take home assignment is the task or duty that is assigned to students. Teachers use this strategy to assess the performance of students.

Problem of Implementation

Findings from research works show that large class size makes it difficult to implement continuous assessment fully by the teachers. This implies that the teacher has to reach fewer numbers of students per class. This will enable the teacher to reach, assess and provide feedback to the children individually. At present, the number of student per class is enormous. This makes it difficult for teachers to reach and evaluate effectively even if they have the competence.

Teachers complain that continuous assessment takes much of their time and it is also burdensome. Nworgu(1992) stated that continuous assessment take so much of teachers time in writing tests and recording results. In fact, it is estimated that teachers spend a good gleam of their time after school hour in marking student’s tests and recording. In many occurrences termly results and student’s report cards are not computed and not ready in good time for giving immediate feedback to the student’s. For instance, in 1984, it was reported that the senior school certificate examination result of many schools where delayed because of the inability of the school to send their continuous assessment records to W.A.E.C on time.

Misinterpretation of guidance is a serious problem that teachers frown at. Some school personnel (principals and teachers) think that assessment is based only on a paper and Pencil test of examination. Teachers also seem to be confused on the amount of material content that school has to cover by each test. Many teachers do not have sufficient materials for evaluating behavior outcome in the domains. Teachers find it difficult to dictate the amount of material content that should be covered by each test. In order words should a test cover only materials taught after an assignment has been made or should the test content be extended to the earlier and related materials proceeding test? On this. Ibeaja and Nworgu (1986) reported that continuous assessment test should include the earlier and related materials taught before and after each proceeding test. The teacher’s feels that this is necessary because a test limited in contents to the materials taught since after the last test would not give students an opportunity to use knowledge which had been acquired before the last test. Besides, this would not make any effective transfer of knowledge on the part of the students coupled with the need for adequate vertical integration of the subject content by the teacher.

Another reason teachers have against the implementation of continuous assessment is what happened when an assignment or test is given and some students fail to turn in for grading. It is obvious that giving a grade of zero to a student who does not turn in an assignment does not reflect the actual ability of the students.

Teachers handle situations differently most of them as reported by Harbour-Ibeajer and Nworgu (1986) are of the opinion that a student who fails to carry out an assignment or test without a reasonable excuse should be scored zero for the assignment not done and his terminal average calculated on the total work don for the term.

Factors Affecting the Effective Implementation of Continuous Assessment

It was pointed out that inspite of its potential as an evaluation mechanism; continuous assessment remains a complex process to execute. It involves the development and use of different level of test and surveys, the training teachers at different levels. Besides, it is very costly in terms of time, energy and materials. It is thus expected that short falls or absence of some or all these factors could hinder the successful implementation of continuous assessment in Nigeria.

1.  Use of Instruments.

The implementation of continuous assessment involves the use of various test and surveys. Unfortunately, courses offered in teacher’s education programme in Nigeria do not properly equip the teachers with the necessary skills and techniques of assessment and thus, on the instrument construction, mere exposure to the concept of measurement and evaluation for the national certificate in education holders is not sufficient for the implementation of the continuous assessment. Worse still, large proportions of serving teachers especially in the secondary school levels are not even professionally trained. Auxiliary teachers found in schools who are not conversant with instrument etc. in the course of their teaching and are forced to apply or use their terms because they accidentally found themselves in the teaching profession.

2.  Unqualified Personnel.

To implement and operate continuous assessment, there is the need for qualified personnel to carry out the programme effectively. Many teachers do not possess the skills or the necessary competence in developing valid assessment instrument for evaluating behavioral outcome in the domains. The requirement of continuous assessment in the overall ability of every child should be assessed in the three domain; cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains and most of the teachers are not familiar with affective and psychomotor assessments. That means the overall ability of the child may not be adequately and effectively assessed.

3.  Record Keeping and Continuity of Records.

An important aspect of continuous assessment is the appropriate record keeping of student’s performance achievement in schools. The types of records that should be kept in the school to reflect how each child’s progress should be assessed as;

(N.P.E 1998), teachers class/ school record book, pupils cumulative record card and the transcript. The essence of these reports is to ensure that continuous assessment is cumulatively kept on each student’s. This protect the teacher from been sued to court when problem arises. It is expected that the record kept will be useful to the parents of any student seeking for transfer from one school to another. These teachers must uniformly and cumulatively keep such record from school to school. Though problem must be encountered in keeping the necessary records of the students and ensuring their continuity and when a student’s record cannot be properly kept for easy retrieval decisions based on such record cannot be made as well.

4.  Teacher Integrity.

The teacher tops the curriculum and student in any programme implementation. This implies that the teacher’s integrity is fundamental in the successful implementation of any programme. The continuous assessment is one of such programme where the teacher and his integrity are central to its successful implementation. The Nigeria society is expected to trust and be rest assured that the teacher will teach and equally assess the learner. However, in the recent past, attitudes, conduct and behavior of these teachers have demonstrated that they cannot perform these essential functions expected of them.

Nigeria teachers today no longer believe and accept that their rewards are reserved for them in heaven. They probably want to get it here on earth. The purpose they actualize through acceptance of bribe from the learners and having some other illegal deal with female learners in other to alter marks in their favour or after some assistance in some public examination.

5.  Another factors is Capital (Money)

The preparation of these instruments for the activities involved will consume large quantities of stationeries. This will cost lots of money (F.M.E 2004). The present state of Nigeria’s economy will make it difficult for many public schools to meet with these needs without excessive charges on their students. Some of the instrument requires non-cognitive assessments are standardized and have to be bought in a large numbers from the publishers which cost a lot of money.

Summary

The writer has in this study reviewed some related literature on the factors affecting implementation of continuous assessment in Secondary School. Having re-examined the definitions of continuous assessment, rationale for introducing continuous assessment, reasons teachers have against its implementation of continuous assessment. The reviewed showed that teachers encounter problems in the conduct of continuous assessment especially where students are many in the class, secondly it is time consuming and more importantly some school still have unqualified teachers who are not conversant with continuous assessment methods thereby keep the record poorly.

Insufficient time for teaching and assessment teachers complain that continuous assessment takes much of their time and it also burdensome. Teachers spend a good deal of their time in writing test and recording results. They even use most of their time after school hour in working continuous assessment thereby neglecting some of their domestic work in the house. The implication is that, some teachers who fine difficult to cope with gives fictitious marks to students and this encourages teachers awarding marks to students without assessment.

Large number of students affects teacher’s sufficiency.

To operate continuous assessment effectively, the teacher need to spend time on each child-helping and observation. This implies that the teacher has to teach few numbers of students per class. This will enable the teacher to teach and assess and provide feedback on the children individually. The implication is that large number of student per class is so enormous and this makes it difficult for teachers to teach and evaluate pupils effectively.

Poor record keeping of continuous assessment.

References

Ezewu, E.E & Okoye, N. N. (1986). Principles and practice of continuous assessment. Ibadan: Evans Publishers.

Federal Republic of Nigeria (2004). National policy on education (4th ed.). Lagos: NERDC Press.

Flick, U. (2002). An introduction to qualitative research. London: Sage.

Idowu, A.I. & Esere, M.O. (2009). Assessment in Nigerian schools: A Counsellor’s Viewpoint. Edo

Journal of Counselling, 2(1), 17-27. An Official Publication of Edo State Chapter of Counselling Association of Nigeria

Ipaye, B. (1995). An evaluation of continuous assessment in schools. Education Today, 1, 49-53.

Litosseliti, L. (2003). Using focus groups in research. London: Continuum.

Ndudi, E. (2001). Cognitive and non-cognitive Assessment in Education. Owerri: Century Publishers,

Oguneye, W. (2002). Continuous assessment: Practice and prospects. Lagos: Providence Publishers.

Olomolaiye, F. (1992). Continuous assessment in Nigerian educational system. A paper presented at the International Curriculum Conference, University of Jos, Jos.

Oyesola, G.O. (1986). Continuous assessment: Some characteristics of a scheme and its organisational implications. Journal of Teacher Education, 2(1), 177-191