Browsing by Author "Lyoka, Gloria Moses"

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    Secondary school teachers and students` attitudes towards ability grouping in Tanzania
    (University of Dar es Salaam., 2008) Lyoka, Gloria Moses
    Ability grouping as a way of managing school instruction so as to cater for pupils of different abilities has been a controversial method. Its effects are debatable as are mixed. in addition, views of teacher on this practice are not often solicited. The study aimed at exploring teachers and student’s attitudes towards forms of ability grouping, such as within class, between class, and between schools. An attitudinal scale containing 27 attitudinal statements was administered to 181 students and 31 teachers from two secondary schools. The key school administrators were also interviewed. The overall results suggested that there existed a negative attitude towards different forms of ability grouping amongst teachers and students, with the highest mean score being 2.91 and the lowest being 2.52. however, there were no significant differences in attitudes towards ability grouping between students, and teachers and teachers and across sex and the length of teaching experience of teachers. Female students slightly preferred within class ability grouping, as compared to male students who were slightly in favour of the between school ability ability grouping yield very low values. The highest correlation obtained was r=0.62 for teachers attitudes towards within class and between class ability groupings. It was conducted that ability grouping alone, without additional inputs, may not help the better abled students to proper, and may hurt the less abled students, both academically and Psychologically. It was recommended that Tanzania need to rethink about the special schools’ model of ability grouping and critically asses its effects on the education system.