Doctoral Degrees (Curriculum Studies)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Curriculum Studies) by Author "Bosan, Patrick Nefai"

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    The effects of high-stakes assessments on mathematics instructional practices of selected teachers in Nigerian senior secondary schools
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-12) Bosan, Patrick Nefai; Ndlovu, M. C.; Gierdien, M. F.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Curriculum Studies.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT : This study investigated the effects of high-stakes assessments on mathematics teachers’ instructional, preparatory and assessment practices at senior secondary school level in Kaduna State, Nigeria. High-stakes assessments are standardized examinations administered at the end of every level of education in order to make significant educational decisions about the students, teachers and the schools as well as about graduation, selection and placement of students in different levels of education. The study also investigated how the West African Senior School Examinations (WASSCE) influence teachers’ beliefs about what constitutes effective teaching of mathematics. The study also interrogated opportunities and challenges faced by teachers in their continuous assessment (CA) practices for the West African Examinations Council’s (WAEC) highstakes examinations. The essence, therefore, was to find out what mathematics is taught, how it is taught and continuously assessed, the reasons for the practices, and whether they enhanced or diminished prospects for students' success in high-stakes examinations and admission to higher education institutions. This interpretive study adopted a qualitative ethnographic case study design whose data were generated from lesson observations of ten mathematics teachers, in-depth interviews with the same teachers, and an analysis of related official documents. Data collected through lesson observation protocols and interview schedules were analysed for content and emergent themes. The findings showed that the Kaduna State teachers’ mathematics instructional practices were influenced by the WAEC high-stakes examinations in multiple ways. Teachers were observed unsystematically drilling and coaching students, and rushing to cover curriculum content they thought had a high likelihood of being tested in the final examinations. They predominantly employed traditional methods of instruction. Teachers over-emphasized the use of WAEC’s past examination question papers sometimes at the expense of the kind of robust conceptual understanding encouraged by Schoenfeld. This reduced most of the instructional, preparatory and continuous assessment practices to the level of what Popham refers to as ‘teaching to the test’. Findings from in-depth interviews of teachers were that they believed that their students should pass the WAEC high-stakes examinations at all costs and to that end believed and preferred instructional strategies that spoon-feed students with solution procedures to be memorised mindlessly for recall during the examinations. Students were not given time to engage in critical thinking or to share multiple problemsolutions strategies. There were doubts among the teachers about the credibility of the final grades awarded to their students after the inclusion of school-based continuous assessment scores (CA). Reasons were mainly based on mistrust and perceived lack of fairness in arriving at the final scores. Some of the opportunities for teachers in the school system were their involvement in the assessment of students’ performance and also that they had opportunities for continuous professional development by WAEC, the government as well as universities. In short, the mathematics teachers experienced the structuring effects of WAEC’s WASSCE and other high-stakes examinations on their instructional and assessment practices. Understanding the influence that shapes the instructional and assessment practices will be valuable in pointing to what it is that needs to be done to reduce the negative effect of high-stakes assessments in order for them to become supportive of instructional practices. Teachers are supposed to be engaged in teaching for understanding and equitable access to legitimate mathematical knowledge for all students and not to be influenced by the excessive demands of high-stakes assessments alone. Teachers need to be supported through appropriate teacher professional development to change their beliefs and to embrace the idea that all students can learn mathematics if treated equitably, recognizing the individual differences that distinguish one student from another, and taking into account these differences in their instructional practices.