Analysing Ghanaian teachers’ perceived effects of authentic assessment on student performance in Tema Metropolis
Analysing Ghanaian teachers’ perceived effects of authentic assessment
Abstract
The main aim of this study was to determine the impact of authentic assessment strategies on student performance among Junior High School students, in the Tema Metropolis in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. The study employed a descriptive research design to determine the effect of authentic assessment strategies on students’ performance. The results showed that students’ portfolios, project works, rubrics, observations, self and peer assessment, story retelling, and demonstrations were the authentic assessment strategies employed by the Junior High School (JHS) teachers in the Tema Metropolis. The study further found that despite the variety of authentic assessment strategies employed by the JHS teachers in the Tema Metropolis, there were numerous challenges that obstruct the teachers in employing authentic assessment strategies. Among these challenges were difficulties in encouraging students’ confidence in oral presentations, large student numbers, difficulties in managing performance tasks, insufficient allotted time in one meeting and the demand for greater investment of time and resources. The study also discovered that there is a positive relationship between the use of authentic assessment strategies by the teachers and the academic performances of the students. Further, the results revealed that when the authentic assessment strategies are used often, the academic performance of the students improves tremendously. The study therefore recommends that teachers need to master some aspects of authentic assessment such as characteristics, topics and scoring rubrics. They also should know several types of authentic assessment that can be used for assessing certain skillReferences
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