Assessment in Primary School Mathematics Classrooms in Nigeria

Abstract

Mathematics is the foundation for the economic and technological development of any nation. It has been asserted that without mathematics there cannot be any modern developed Society (Ukeje, 2005). This accounts for the reason why Mathematics is made a compulsory subject at the Primary and Secondary School levels in Nigeria (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2008). Thus, mathematics is expected to help in accelerating social, economic and technological progress of any Society. But these, in the final analyses, depend on the effective teaching and learning of mathematics in schools. The Primary school level is very important in any educational system because any default at this level would permeate to other levels of the educational system. To realize the objectives of teaching mathematics at any level of the educational system in the Society, there is need to monitor and maintain the quality of the educational processes and products. One major way of monitoring the quality and standards of the teaching and learning of mathematics in schools is through the assessment of the learning outcome of the pupils. The essence of using tests and other evaluation instruments during the instructional process is to guide, direct, and monitor students’ learning progress towards the attainment of the course objectives (Alonge, 2004; Kolawole, 2010).

This monitoring of learning achievements in mathematics involves the processes of testing, measurement, assessment and evaluation. A test is set of questions, tasks or problems intended to measure an individual’s knowledge, skill, aptitude, intelligence etc. Testing is therefore a systematic procedure of presenting a set of questions, tasks, or problems to testes and expecting them to respond to the items either orally or written, and sometimes by performance within a specified time schedule. Measurement is the assignment of numbers or marks to observed event or response to testing. Assessment is the process of using the results from measurement to take decisions about the object of assessment. Evaluation is a systematic process of determining the extent to which the learners have achieved the stated instructional objectives. Assessment provides the logic and justification for the judgemental stance of evaluation (Anikweze, 2010).

Assessment is an integral part of the teaching learning process and is expected to contribute to students’ learning. If assessment does not contribute to the teaching learning process, then it is not necessary to assess the students. Indeed , evaluation is an important aspect of good teaching and learning process because no matter how efficient the teacher, how intelligent the pupils, how adequate the audio-visual equipment, if no provision is made for some evaluation of progress, the teaching may be invalidated. Unfortunately some teachers see assessment as an isolated activity from the teaching and learning processes. Hence, some teachers haphazardly carry out the assessment processes of the pupils without utilising the goals and benefit of assessment in the classroom. Some of the teachers see assessment mainly for the purpose of grading the pupils.

In the Nigerian educational system, Continuous Assessment was introduced in 1982 for the assessment of students at all the levels of the educational system. This replaced the one-shot, or end of course only summative evaluation practiced in the past. Under this system, teachers are to evaluate the learners using written tests, assignments, projects and other assessment instruments during the course and at the end of the term or session. The continuous assessment given during the course accounts for about 30-40 percent, while the end of term assessment accounts for 60-70 percent of a pupil’s scores. This gives teachers the opportunity to monitor and assess the learning progression of the pupils in his class.

The continuous assessment is guidance oriented. This requires the skills of teachers in test construction and administration and record keeping. Teachers are expected construct valid and reliable tests which could be used in all schools following established procedures and practices of test construction. In addition to test construction (which is mainly on cognitive aspect of learning), teachers should also be able to measure the learners affective attributes such as attitudes, motives, interest, values and other personal characteristics. The teachers should also be able to provide clues or measures about the physical alertness and patterns of learners’ psychomotor attributes. The continuous assessment is said to be comprehensive as it is expected to measure the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains of learners. This involves a great variety of instruments such as: tests, interviews, questionnaire, assignments, and observations as shown below: