Classroom Assessment Practices of Junior High School Social Studies Teachers in Ghana: The Case of Ga East Municipality

Abstract

Introduction: In Ghana, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment of the Ministry of Education considers assessment as an integral part of the standards-based curriculum. Teachers are therefore required to look at what they do as regards classroom assessment practices. This discourse reflects the classroom assessment practices of Junior High School (JHS) Social Studies Teachers in the Ga East Municipality. The paper relies on Title’s (1994) Theory and Mohamad’s (2009) framework for classroom assessment practices. A survey was conducted on 60 Social Studies teachers sampled via the census sampling technique. The Teachers Practice of Classroom Assessment Questionnaire (TPCAQ,?=0.81) for data collection. Descriptive statistics (frequency count, percentage, mean), measures of dispersion and variability (standard deviation), and t-tests were used to analyse the data. The study revealed that classroom assessment practices of JHS Social Studies teachers were satisfactory, mean ( ?2.95), except for students’ involvement in assessment practices ( = 2.26). The major practices of the teachers were: feedback practices ( = 3.28), revision of assessment practices (  = 3.20), and communication of assessment results to students ( = 2.98). Female teachers performed better than their male counterparts on all the classroom assessment practice constructs (p=0.000). The study concludes that classroom assessment practices involving feedback practices, revision of assessment, communicating assessment results, and students’ involvement in assessment are critical to Social Studies education in Ghana. Therefore, the Ga East Municipal Directorate of Education should periodically train Social Studies teachers on best practices in classroom assessment to improve their assessment practices.

Received: 20 July 2024 / Accepted: 29 August 2024 / Published: 7 September 2024