COMPARISON OF STUDENTS’ PERFORMANCE IN CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT AND END OF TERM EXAMINATIONS IN ISLAMIC STUDIES IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS, KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

ABSTRACT
This research entitled, comparison of Students‟ performance in Continuous Assessment and End of Term Examinations in Islamic Studies in Senior Secondary Schools, Kaduna State, Nigeria was conceived as a result of lack of uniformity of the weigh attached to Continuous Assessment scores, differences in procedures of scoring and grading in Islamic Studies and shortage of assessment instruments. The study was conducted with the objectives to; compare Students‟ performance in Continuous Assessment and End of Term Examinations in Islamic Studies in Senior Secondary Schools, Kaduna State; find out the procedures used in the conduct of Continuous Assessment and End of Term Examination in Islamic Studies in Senior Secondary Schools in Kaduna State; and determine the difference in Students‟ performance in Continuous Assessment and End of Term Examination in Islamic Studies in rural and urban Senior Secondary Schools in Kaduna State. Also, three research questions and three null hypotheses were postulated in line with the stated objectives. Survey research design of the ex-post facto type was used for the study. The target population of the study comprised 13,433 Students in public Secondary Schools. The sample size of 1,608 SSII Islamic Studies Students from 10 Schools which cut across the three senatorial zones (north, central and south) of Kaduna State were used for the study. Data were collected using a researcher designed questionnaire and standard recorded data of scores both for CA and End of Term Examinations. The two instruments were subjected to a pilot study which provided a unique estimate of 0.91 for the standard recorded data and also gave a reliability index of 0.84 for the questionnaire instrument. The data gathered were analyzed using independent t-test and chi-square for contingency table. All the hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Findings showed that Students performed significantly better in End of Term Examinations than in Continuous Assessment in Islamic Studies in Senior Secondary Schools, Kaduna State; significant difference existed between the procedures used in the conduct of Continuous Assessment and End of Term Examinations in Islamic Studies in Senior Secondary Schools, Kaduna State; and significant difference existed between Students‟ performance in Continuous Assessment and End of Term Examinations in Islamic Studies in rural and urban Senior Secondary Schools in Kaduna State. Based on the findings, the study concluded that the procedures used in the conduct of End of Term Examination in Islamic Studies in Senior Secondary Schools in Kaduna State were more effective compared to the Continuous Assessment. Recommendations were made that teachers in Senior Secondary Schools in Kaduna State should accept their professional responsibilities and become accountable for their actions with regard to assessment of the teaching process; the Ministry of Education should put in place regulations, checks and balances to ensure that different procedures are used in the conduct of Continuous Assessment and End of Term Examinations in Secondary Schools. Similarly, Islamic Studies teachers should always bear in mind that assessing the progress and achievement of each Student continuously is an integral part of the teaching and learning process.


CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION 
1.1       Background to the Study
Education in Nigeria is the shared responsibility of the Federal, State and Local governments. The Federal Ministry of Education plays a dominant role in regulating the education sector, engaging in policy formation and ensuring quality control. However, the federal government is more directly involved with tertiary education than it is with Secondary School education, which is largely the responsibility of state (Secondary) and local (primary) governments. The federal government introduced Continuous Assessment (C.A). It was aimed at ensuring Student‟s performance in a progressive manner towards the end of the schooling. The government aimed at improving the standard of education in the country by introducing this system, since there has been a mass complain by public of the former system of learning over difficulties by Students at Secondary level of education (Ben-Yunusa, 2008). Continuous Assessment has been for the promotion of total development of the learner and accounting for the level of attainment through assessing the totality of the gains of education as outcome of moral, cognitive, Psychomotor, Affective and social skills of the learner based on a continuously monitored continuum. The success of the Continuous Assessment system depends on the validity of the procedures, the methods to use in recording information, the training and retraining and the monitoring that accompanies it, go a long way to make it effective.

Before the implementation of Continuous Assessment (C.A), the summative system of assessment was used for the promotion of Students from one level of education to another, there was no Continuous Assessment in between, like test, assignment. It is a one-time terminal examination that usually comes at the end of every year. The examination is marked over 100% where a Student is expected to score at least 40%. In the eventuality, a Student fails to meet required score, he may be asked to repeat the year. This is because the evaluation is done in summative basis. The problem of this system of evaluation is that; a one-time terminal or summative test may not provide the best picture of Student‟s performance. Often, such a test deals with certain cognitive skills while relegating to the background the Affective and the Psychomotor aspects of human behaviour. With this type of system of evaluation Students are encouraged to memorize a collection of facts to be used during examinations.(Ogunnuyi,2008).

Indeed, in Secondary Schools, assessment of Students‟ learning in the classroom has been an integral component of the teaching-learning process especially at Senior Secondary School level because there is much effort by the teacher to teach a lot of content to Students. However, to Kellaghan and Greany (2008), that kind of assessment is subjective, informal, immediate, on going, and intuitive as it interacts with learning as it occurs. Although the main argument behind the adoption of Continuous Assessment is to avoid focusing all efforts, time and energy on just one exam, this is not true in Nigerian Secondary Schools. Teachers and Students put their focus on final examinations called End of Term Examinations (ETE). This is because ETE results are important as it can be used for decision-making in terms of determining as to whether Students should be promoted from one class to another. Generally, Students pile up their notes until the approach of the promotional or terminal examination. The fact that Student‟s performance is determined at the end of a programme, he/she cannot be helped to overcome his learning deficiencies in terms of knowledge and skills acquisition. Students are overloaded with Curriculum contents at the detriment of skills acquisition through practicals.

Continuous Assessment involves the systematic collection of data on all aspects of an educational endeavor. This means that the data collected about Students‟ academic performance is used on a continuous basis in a systematic way, to take meaningful decisions on what should happen. Graume and Naidoo (2014), have also indicated that, “in a global economy, assessment of Students performance is changing mainly because in an ever-changing knowledge based society, Students would not only be required to learn and understand the basics but also to think critically, to analyze, and to make inference for making decisions. It is therefore critical that Continuous Assessment could utilize strategies that are able to measure the changing Students‟ abilities and attitudes, and this is why this study was undertaken to compare Students‟ performance in Continuous Assessment and End of Term Examination in Islamic Studies in Senior Secondary Schools Kaduna State, Nigeria.

Continuous Assessment take more cognizance of the weaker, average and gifted Students‟ performance because; as a result of Continuous Assessment, practical activities are taken where Students are better and perhaps it emphasize more on the three educational domains of learning. In this regard, if they do not score in theory aspect, he/ she may score in the practical aspect. As a result of the population explosion, this vital area of educational assessment has been suffering due to inadequate instructional material, inadequate classrooms, and the problem in the conduct of examinations due to the increase in the number of Students enrolled each year. Continuous Assessment has a larger coverage area. Despite this, the content of some courses in Islamic Studies are very large due to the changes in the new minimum standard in 2009 and the time allocated to the subject has been reduced. These situations may not allow the teacher to cover the full content area and to assess the Students properly.

Secondary Schools in Nigeria where Islamic education is studied among other subjects, Students were assessed based on three domains of learning and the instructional materials were sometimes available, but where the instructional materials needed is not available, the teachers do improvise; the content of the Curricular was not much, there was also the availability of classrooms and the conduct of examination was fine. It has been observed by Oladunni, in Wokocha and Ubong (2013), that there is a serious problem with regard to Continuous Assessment in Islamic Studies. On the basis of the above mentioned problems the researcher carried out this study to compare the Students‟ performance in Continuous Assessment and End of Term Examination in Islamic Studies in Senior Secondary Schools, Kaduna State, Nigeria.

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Item Type: Project Material  |  Size: 111 pages  |  Chapters: 1-5
Format: MS Word   Delivery: Within 30Mins.
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