Kindergarten teachers’ use of existing ICT tools in classroom assessment practices in Asikuma Odoben Brakwa District

Abstract

Integration of ICT into all levels of Ghanaian education has been a concern to the government of Ghana. As a result, the government in collaboration with other stakeholders of education have undertaken steps to ensure that ICT integration into education in Ghana becomes a reality. Despite the numerous efforts by the government and other stakeholders towards ensuring comprehensive ICT integration, in most cases the opposite is what is realized in practice. With all of the research on kindergarten teachers' use of ICT in education, very little studies centred on ICT use in classroom assessment practices of the kindergarten teachers. Using a descriptive survey design, a research was undertaken on kindergarten teachers’ use of existing ICT tools in classroom assessment practices in Asikuma Odoben Brakwa district. Census was employed in the selection of participants and therefore all the 193 public school kindergarten teachers in the district (37 male and 156 female) were used as participants in the study. Meanwhile, descriptive statistics alongside inferential statistics (Independent Sample T-Test) were employed to analyse the data. Findings of the study, revealed that the existing types of ICT tools in the kindergarten classrooms were tablet, printer, computer, pen drive, mobile phone, video game, radio cassette recorder, television, television decoder, and Bluetooth speaker; majority of the classrooms did not have most of the types of ICT tools. It was also revealed in the study that majority of the teachers at the kindergarten level do not most of the time use ICT tools in classroom assessment practices. The study further found that majority of the kindergarten teachers have inadequate knowledge in using ICT tools in classroom assessment practices. Generally, majority of the kindergarten teachers according to the findings of this study, have challenges most of the time in their use of ICT tools in classroom assessment practices and these challenges include inadequate computers, inadequate knowledge in using the ICT tools, developmentally inappropriate ICT tools, lack of technical support, inadequate time and limited understanding of ICT integration into classroom assessment. Also, the study found that there was no statistically significant difference in ICT use in classroom assessment practices between the mean scores of the male teachers and the female teachers. In view of the findings of the study, recommendations were made to the government of Ghana and its educational stakeholders to support the schools by providing developmentally appropriate ICT tools to kindergarten classrooms in the district. The Ghana Education Service with its partner organizations should also provide regular in-service training to kindergarten teachers and support them in diverse ways to resolve the challenges they encounter in using ICT tools in the conduct of their classroom assessment practices.