Browsing by Author "Lukuwi, Boniface Anania"

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    Mathematics teachers’ awareness and use of assessment tools: a case of secondary schools in Sumbawanga municipal in Tanzania
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2017) Lukuwi, Boniface Anania
    This study is on mathematics teachers’ awareness and use of assessment tools in Sumbawanga municipal secondary schools. The study was guided by four objectives: To examine the extent to which mathematics teachers understand various assessment tools, to explore assessment tools and methods used by mathematics teachers in assessing students, to examine the secondary school mathematics subject teachers’ adherence to the principle of conducting the assessment effectively to students and to find out the challenges facing the mathematics teachers when conducting assessment to their students. The study employed mixed approach and descriptive survey design. Respondents were obtained through purposeful sampling and simple random sampling techniques. Data were collected through questionnaires, interviews, classroom observations and documentary review. The findings revealed that there were lack of trainings and orientation of mathematics subject teachers on forms of assessment tools, a situation that led to teachers’ narrow understanding of assessment tools to mean only written test, quiz and examination. It was revealed that assessment tools which revised in the syllabus such as rating scale, self-assessment, project, portfolio, anecdotal records and group assignments were not adequately employed by mathematics teachers on assessing students to acquire mathematics competencies. Furthermore, the mathematics teachers had low adherence to the principles of conducting assessment to their students. The sampled teachers failed even to identify the competencies stipulated in the syllabus, in the sense that, no teacher could mention even five competencies for each type of mathematics skills. The challenges facing mathematics teachers were overcrowded classes and over teaching load, but the main and leading challenge was the influence from the format of assessment used in Form Two national examinations and that of NECTA in Form Four summative examinations. Those are formats that influenced all secondary school mathematics subject teachers to assess the students in lower skills only. School administration should plan on having internal mathematics seminar and mathematics clubs in order to discover and develop students’ mathematical skills. On the other hand, the government should allocate more funds in education budget in order to support mathematics teachers for regular and suitable in-service training and how to design and use motivational programmes in teaching mathematics subject so as to enable them to raise students’ interest in pursuing mathematics subject