Influence Of Formative Assessment On Achievement In Business Studies In Public Secondary Schools In Kitui County, Kenya.

Abstract

Authentic formative assessment is a kind of alternative assessment whereby teachers ask learners to do real life activities to demonstrate right application of required knowledge and skills. Formative assessment involves engaging in real world tasks or meaningful questions in which learners are required to use knowledge and skills acquired to improve performance effectively and creatively. Teachers assign learners tasks which are the same as the problems faced in real life situation. Formative assessment helps teachers and learners identify what the learners can do effectively and what they cannot do well. It is investigative in nature. Formative assessment requires learners to make decisions on their own learning by answering the following questions; where do I want to go? How far have I gone? How do I complete the journey? Formative assessment helps teachers to know the progress of the learners and areas of difficulty. This helps teachers to make instructional adjustments such as remedial teaching, varying methods of teaching and providing learners with more engaging tasks. The mentioned activities lead to improved performance of learners. The performance of business Studies has been dropping since 2013 to 2017 with means of 47.12 and 31.06 respectively. Still the performance is very poor in Mumoni Sub County. This aroused the curiosity of the researcher to conduct the study on influence of formative assessment on achievement in public secondary schools in Mumoni Sub County. The researcher wants to determine whether assignments, feedback, continuous assessment tests and their frequency influence the learner’s performance in Business Studies. The Vygotsky’s social constructive theory guided this study. Vygotsky argued that human mind is constructed through interactions with the environment or world. Vygotsky stated that, a child entirely dependents on other people during early stages as they present variety of tasks and engaging the child in his or her sociocultural environment. This study used mixed design that is descriptive research design and experimental design. A descriptive survey design involves application of questionnaires or conducting interviews to a representative sample to collect information from a common group. Pretest and posttest technique were used. The researcher used stratified random sampling technique to select sample group. Descriptive survey research is reported by use of frequency distribution tables, percentages and then tabulating them accordingly. Teachers should vary their teaching strategies and also give authentic tasks to meet learners’ differences. Integration of teaching, learning and assessment helps learners to grasp new concepts easily and apply them to solve real life problems. Teachers should offer timely feedback to learners to know their strong and weak areas, make decisions on how to improve weak areas and evaluate their progress. Feedback should always motivate learners to study tirelessly. It should provoke students to learn. Assignments and continuous assessment tests should consist of authentic tasks which gives learners an opportunity to practice learnt concepts. Assignments and CATs should provide learners with chance to practice learnt skills and knowledge to solve real life problems in order to construct new knowledge. Assignments and CATs should be offered in a friendly environment to enhance motivation of learners to study Business studies. Business studies teachers should offer variety of formative assessment techniques to motivate learners and enhance learning process by providing a more focused application for learners. Teachers should provide a well-designed assignments and CATs with carefully planned authentic tasks to motivate learners to learn Business studies. To be effective all formative assessment tools should be informative. They should help the teacher to monitor learner’s progress and point out areas’ students did not grasp the concept well. They should identify student’s individual differences for the teachers to vary instructional strategies to meet learner’s differences. Offering many formative assessments gives students an opportunity to practice learnt concepts leading to mastery of the concepts hence improved academic achievement. As students perform authentic tasks in solving problems in real world situation, they construct new knowledge.