Beliefs and classroom evaluation practices of Senior High School ESI Teachers and Students in Sunyani East Municipality

Abstract

Beliefs and classroom evaluation practices form an integral part of the teaching and learning process. It helps in determining teaching pedagogy and also provides feedback to students to enhance their understanding of concepts taught. The study investigated beliefs and classroom evaluation practices of Senior High School ESL teachers and students in the Sunyani East Municipality, Bono Region, Ghana. The objectives were: to find out Senior High School teachers’ and students’ beliefs about evaluation practices in ESL classrooms in Sunyani East Municipality; to identify what evaluation practices are deployed in ESL classrooms by SHS teachers in Sunyani East Municipality; and finally, to investigate the challenges teachers confront in applying classroom evaluation practices in ESL classrooms in Sunyani East Municipality. The mixed methods approach was adopted with convergent parallel design. The purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used to draw the participants from five public Senior High Schools for the study. The data were collected through researcher observation of classroom teaching and learning, and in-depth interviews of 10 teachers and questionnaires administered to 396 students. The findings revealed that the most common purpose of evaluation was to pass value judgement on students’ performance followed by four students-centered purposes: to obtain students’ progress; to provide feedback to students; to diagnose students strengths and weaknesses and to motivate students to learn. However, teachers’ beliefs about evaluation were incongruent with their actual classroom evaluation practices. This was due to several contextual factors including overcrowded classrooms, excessive workload of teachers, students’ inability to express themselves in the English language and time constraints. Students on the other hand saw questioning and discussion, group work, portfolio, class test, exams and peer assessment as forms of evaluation practices. It was recommended that there should be more professional activities inside schools to encourage teachers to equip themselves with contemporary approaches of classroom evaluation practices.