Understanding Teacher’s Knowledge of Formative Assessment and Students’ Achievements: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach

Abstract

Teachers’ knowledge of formative assessment and its influence on teacher’s teaching and students’ learning after the classroom interacton is of growing importance due to the significant increase in economics students’ failure in ordinary level (O/L) General Certificate of Education (GCE) examination in Cameroon and Mezam Division in particular. It is in this backdrop that this paper attempted to describe and clarify the pedagogic effects of economics teachers’ knowledge of formative assessment on economic students’ achievements in Mezam Division, Cameroon. Primary data was used based on a survey of 07 government secondary general education schools in Mezam Division and 01 Higher Teacher Training College (HTTC) in Bambili, NorthWest Region of Cameroon. From a total population of 4000 teachers and students a sample of 488 was selected. The sample consisted of 03 Regional Pedagogic Inspectors (RPIs), 08 Heads of Departments (HoDs), 33 teachers
and 444 form five students of economics in the North West Region. The
purposive, proportional, stratified and simple random sampling techniques were used to select the teacher training college, secondary schools, RPIs, HoDs, teachers and students of economics. The structural equation modelling (SEM)approach was employed for estimation. The pairwise correlation results showed a statistically significant correlation between teachers’ knowledge of formative assessment and students’ achievement. The partial least square results revealed that teachers’ knowledge of formative assessment had an indirect (through teachers’ knowledge of students’ conception) influence on students’ examination scores in economics. On the basis of these results, it is recommended that; decision makers should encourage regular in-service training programme such as seminars and workshops for all teachers of economics in order to keep them abreast with constructive alignment theory.
Indeed, the government should apportion special budgets to government
schools, for helping teachers to create professional learning communities and
schools to learn from each other. Learning about formative assessment and its
forms should become integral elements of any new curriculm reform process.