High School Teachers’ Perceived Knowledge and Practices of Authentic Assessment in Awi Zone, Ethiopia Disciplines in Focus

Abstract

There have been series of discussions on application of assessments across different subject areas. Among different types of assessments which have been used in classroom teaching process at different level of education, authentic assessment has been considered as an appropriate type to enhance learning effectiveness over paper-pencil tests. This study was aimed at assessing teachers‟ perceived knowledge and practices of authentic classroom assessment across different disciplines. Following descriptive research design, closed ended questionnaire was administered for 243 randomly selected high school teachers from different disciplines. The frequency table prevailed that the most frequent and common assessment techniques applied across disciplines
were mid exam, final exam, and test. Inversely, the least frequently applied assessment techniques were demonstration, refection and performance tests. Analysis of independent sample t-test depicted that training background brought significant difference between teachers in perceived knowledge and practices of authentic assessment. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) also showed that there was significant difference among teachers in different disciplines on perceived knowledge of authentic classroom assessment. It was further found that teachers had similar level and trends in practices of authentic classroom assessment across subject areas and teaching experiences. This implied that teachers‟ failure in assessing students learning depending on educational background in that students learning in science, language and mathematics was assessed similarly which is not
basically adheres to authentic assessment principles and procedures.