Assessing Assessment Literacy of Science Teachers in Public Secondary Schools in Ekiti State

Abstract

The study investigated assessment literacy of science teachers in public secondary schools in Ekiti State using survey design. Participants were 337 teachers (Male=152, Female=185) selected from 85 out of 184 public secondary schools in Ekiti State using stratified random sampling technique. Research instrument was a self-constructed questionnaire, ‘Teacher’s Assessment Literacy’, having three sections: A, B and C. Section A was on biodata: gender (male/female) and teaching experience (in years) defined as 0—5 (low), 6—15 (average) and 16⁺ (high). Section B contained 15 items multiple choice test of knowledge of assessment techniques with reliability coefficient=0.79 using KR-21 formula. Section C contained 20 items assessment techniques in which teachers were asked to indicate their degree of emphasis on each using a five-point scale: Always (5), Often (4), Sometimes (3), Rarely (2) and Never (1), with reliability coefficient=0.82 using Cronbach-?. Data were analysed using percentiles, means, standard deviations, t-test and one-way ANOVA tested at 0.05 level of significance. Results showed that majority of the teachers had low knowledge of assessment techniques. However, female teachers were more assessment-literate than males, while high experienced teachers were more assessment-literate than low and average experienced teachers. Moreover, teachers placed more emphasis on formal assessment procedures than the informal. It was recommended that regular seminar/workshop be organised for science teachers on assessment practices for quality assessment in the classroom.

Keywords: Assessing, Assessment literacy, Science teachers, Secondary schools