TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS ON THE ROLE OF SUMMATIVE EVALUATION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON TEACHERS’ CLASSROOM PRACTICES IN RARIEDA SUB-COUNTY, SIAYA COUNTY, KENYA
Abstract
Examinations can be messy when used summatively to gauge the level of
attainment posing adverse influence to the process of curriculum implementation.
This influence is likely to hit hard various teachers’ practices such as lesson
preparation, lesson implementation, classroom management, formative assessment
and syllabus completion. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions
on summative evaluation, both classroom summative evaluation done at the end of the
term/year and the national examination, and its influences on the teachers’ classroom
practices in Rarieda Sub-county, Siaya County, Kenya. The study was guided by
motivational theory-extrinsic and intrinsic theories. This study employed descriptive
and correlational research designs. Stratified sampling and cluster sampling
techniques were used to obtain the desired sample of 250 teachers. Questionnaire and
focus group discussion were used to gather information from the respondents. The
questionnaires’ construct, content and face validity was ascertained through expert
judgments and the reliability was established through pilot testing yielding
Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of .620 and higher. The data was analyzed using
frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviations, and Pearson product-moment
correlation coefficient. The study revealed that there is significant relationship
between perceptions on classroom summative evaluation and classroom management
(r=.264), formative assessment (r=.383) and syllabus completion (r=.192) and
between perceptions on national examination and lesson preparation (r=.281), lesson
implementation (lower-order/higher-order) (r=.183), (r=.281), classroom management
(r=.451), and formative assessment (r=.541). The study recommended that teachers
should give their focus to acquisition of attitudes, values and skills that are needful in
this century and adopt good classroom practices to ensure in-depth learning.