THE IMPACT OF CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT ON STUDENT
PERFORMANCE IN ECONOMICS (A CASE STUDY OF ILE-OLUJI-OKE-IGBO LOCAL GOVERNMENT
AREA OF ONDO STATE)
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
The act of monitoring and evaluating
the performance of secondary school student in Nigeria and guiding them for a
chosen future career has been one of the problems confronting educationists in recent times. The end of
session promotion examination at the end of the session has become a mockery of
the purpose for which they are conducted. One has to accept the use of
continuous assessment as a solution to this problem.
Prior to western education in
Nigeria, education was mostly informal, closely linked to this oral and
informal approach with a full observation. However, with the introduction of
western education in Nigeria, western method of assessment was broken down into
internal and external examination. The former is the type of test conducted at
the end of every school term and sometimes every two weeks during the school
years.
The other type of examination which
operates in our school system is known as external examination. This type of
examination is conducted by external bodies. External in the sense that they
are not responsible for teaching the pupils or students i.e. the West Africa
Examination Council (W.A.E.C), the National Examination Council (N.E.C.O) the
national Agency for Business and technical Education Board (NABTEB) and the
National Teachers Institute (NTI) for conducting of the General Certificate
Examination (GCE) and teachers grade (II) examination respectively.
This type of assessment is directed
only to learning activities that need thinking. The student knowledge and
understanding acquired in various subject of the school curriculum are
evaluated and marks are awarded not based on students’ skill.
Another problem with this practice of
assessment is that, there is no essential feedback on student performance
because tests are conducted and decisions are made only at the end of the term
or year.
Also, in addition to this, the result
or reports, which are usually sent to parents or guardians, contain information
on the children overall performance.
Information is usually provided about
grades indicating attainment in the different subjects. All these are geared
only to the cognitive domain of knowledge.
It is also well known that, due to
emphasis laid on paper qualification and poor state of record keeping, students
sometimes try to get any means in order to pass their examinations which this
result to examination malpractices such as cheating in examination, examination
leakages and forging of certificates. It, therefore, becomes very necessary to
change these practices and there is need for a mere comprehensive method of
teleguiding student’s performances in the schools. This is where the
introduction of continuous assessment has gained ground and popularity.
1.2 Statement of Problems
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1.3 Objectives of the Study
The following statements are some of
the purpose of the study:
i. The researcher aim at undertaking a
careful assessment of continuous assessment in schools in Ile-Oluji-Oke-Igbo
Local Government Area.
ii. It is also the view of the researcher
to have critical understanding of the impact of continuous assessment of the
student in the Ile-Oluji-Oke-Igbo Local Government Area.
iii. This research will also like to
identify the problems encountered in the implementation of continuous
assessment.
1.4 Research Questions
Research questions seek to address
the fundamental problems in the research work.
i.
What
are the major problems in the effective implementation of continuous assessment
in the secondary school Economics?
ii.
What
are the perceive impacts of Economics teachers in the improvement of the
subject through continuous assessment?
iii. What are the basic requirements for
the effective implementation of continuous assessment in economics?
1.5 Significance of the Study
The significance of this research
work is viewed as the researcher tries to examine the implementations of
continuous assessment in Nigeria schools today. The aim is to look at the
overall personality development of the individual.
This embraces not only assessment of
the cognitive domain of knowledge, but also includes assessment of character
and other industrious skills of the student.
One of the significance
of the study to the researcher is to assess the degree at which the continuous
assessment has enhanced the performance of teachers and student in secondary
schools level.
The problems encountered
in the implementation of continuous assessment will be looked into and
suggestions to the problems will be proffered by the researcher. Finally, the
researcher adhere strictly to the view that continuous assessment of student is
the only way of providing adequate information about students performance at
the end of every term or session.
Scope and Delimitation of the Study
It is the intention of the researcher
that, this research work be extended to cover Ile-Oluji-Oke-Igbo local
Government, Akure as a whole. The main aim and objectives of this researcher
study is directed on the impact of continuous assessment in school in the
country under the National Policy of Education (9-3-4) system.
Again, its aims at studying how the
problems encountered in the course of the implementation of the programme could
be tackled.
Limitation of the Study
The researcher decided to limit the
scope of the research work to some selected secondary schools in Ile-Oluji-Oke-Igbo
Local Government.
The secondary schools selected are:
(i)
Orere
Grammar School, Ile – Oluji
(ii)
Gboluji
Grammar School, Ile – Oluji
(iii)
Baptist
Day Grammar School, Ile – Oluji
(iv)
Holy
Saviour’s Grammar School, Ile – Oluji
(v)
St.
Francis Grammar School, Ile – Oluji
In the Course of the study, the students,
teachers and principals of the selected secondary schools are used to get some
vital information.
Definition of Terms
In order to make this research work understandable,
it is necessary to define the key words in the study.
A. Impact: It is
used in the research work to mean, the positive and negative effects on
continuous assessment.
B. Continuous assessment: this is also the method of finding out what the pupils or students
have gained from learning activities in terms of knowledge, thinking and
reasoning, character development and industry.
C. Evaluation:
Evaluation involves the measurement, test and value judgment of knowledge or
skill.
D. Test: Test is used to mean, any instrument
administered for the purpose of determining the achievement of a particular aim
and objective.
E. Domain:
Component or classification of behaviour
F. Cognitive Domain: It has to do with the intellectual ability of the learner.
G. Affective Domain: It has to do with motor skills, for instance, drawing, typing, biffing,
molding, balancing, cycling and last but not the least kicking etc.
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