The Quality of Learning and Teaching in Developing Countries: Assessing Literacy and Numeracy in Malawi and Sri Lanka - Education Research Paper No. 41, 2000, 90 p.

[Previous Page] [Table of Contents] [Next Page]

Chapter 5 - Results

Part 1 - Teaching and Assessment
Part 2 - Assessing Literacy Learning
Part 3 - Assessing Mathematics Learning

Part 1 - Teaching and Assessment

One aim of the study was to identify what kinds of teacher activities and what assessment practices existed in both countries. During the research period, a large number of observations was carried out and teachers were interviewed.

The research was particularly concerned with finding out how literacy and mathematics were taught and assessed in the two countries.

In Malawi the classroom activities observed showed that there was very little teaching of reading. Where reading activity was observed, teachers read to the whole class from text books. Listening to individual children read from fiction and non-fiction readers occurred in a small percentage of the lessons observed, although in most of the occasions observed, teachers were engaged in another activity, usually, marking exercise books, while children were called to the front to read. The rest of the class was asked to follow the text in their books.

Only in a very few of the lessons observed did the teachers take a active role in reading. They tended to read ‘with’ children and helped them when they encountered difficult words. Even here though, the teacher was more concerned with correcting reading errors, rather than helping the child enjoy the book by drawing attention to characters, pictures, print and so on.

No records were kept on children’s abilities as readers.

Teaching support for the development of writing was minimal. There was little evidence that teachers were engaging in activities designed to enhance and enrich the creative and factual writing abilities of their students.

In only a small number of the lessons observed did teachers provide students with a variety of ‘tools’ for writing. In some of the lessons observed, teachers provided resources for writing. This consisted of teachers ‘recycling’ paper to make books for students to write in. This was particularly encouraging as in most cases, teachers pointed to the lack of resources for writing as a reason for limited writing activity. Even more encouraging was where teachers helped students to identify different audiences for their writing. In about a third of observed English lessons, teachers emphasised for example the differences between writing a ‘friendly’ letter and a ‘formal’ letter. Very few teachers viewed writing as a ‘process’ where they encouraged students to produce more than one draft. This however, was not the norm in Malawi.

The assessment of writing was focused on formal accuracy - grammar, spelling and punctuation - and a mark, usually out of 20, was awarded. Very few records were kept.

In mathematics, teacher concentrated mainly on addition, subtraction, multiplication and number work of different kinds. Very few, if any, observations were made of children investigating or solving problems through group discussion. The assessment of mathematics consisted of marking answers right or wrong and very few records of children’s progress were kept.

In Sri Lanka it was clear that the context of learning and teaching was very different to that in Malawi. Schools were far better resourced and teachers were engaged in numerous activities to support both literacy and mathematics.

Most encouraging to observe was established practice of recording student progress. Numerous innovative teacher made systems for recording children’s progress in literacy and mathematics were visible in all the research schools. One of the researchers on the team made the following remark:

‘In classrooms, I came across recording systems used by teachers to record pupil progress -achievement on several criteria judged at four levels, each half term. Progress over the year is monitored, in some cases, publicly displayed and, in one school, analysed and available in the Principal’s study. For one teacher, her record led to the short-listing of pupils who needed special help and these were monitored more closely with a more detailed set of criteria. In mathematics, I saw reports, or heard about, several more substantial surveys of what pupils can do at various stages in the primary school.’

Currently, continuous assessment is expected to be used in Years 1-3 while end-of-term formal testing is used in years 4 and 5. Although a format has been prepared, and guidance on filling it out has been provided, widespread use of these procedures is not evident (Little 1991). By contrast, end-of-term formal testing is evident in most schools, even for Year 1.

It is clear from the above account that there is a considerable variety of assessment practices in use in schools in the two countries studied. This ranges from, at one extreme, teachers who are faced with such an overwhelming combination of huge class sizes and lack of even the basic resources that they are unable to employ any sort of systematic classroom assessment practice at all. At the other extreme are teachers whose professional skill and commitment has led them to develop their own procedures for maintaining pupils’ progress in order to support individual learning most effectively.

Clearly, it would not be possible to devise a system that could meet this range of needs. However, these observations do underline the value of teachers routinely being provided with suitable assessment tools which would enable the majority to develop and operate much more useful systems for monitoring individual pupil achievement and for providing classroom-level feedback on the profile of student learning.

Part 2 - Assessing Literacy Learning

General principles

Literacy learning was assessed in Malawi and Sri Lanka. In both countries, both English and other national languages were assessed. In the case of Malawi, assessments were made of children’s oral and written language and of reading in English and Chichewa. Similarly, in Sri Lanka, assessments were made of children’s oral, written work and their reading in English, Sinhahla and Tamil.

In each case, standard tasks, designed by the researchers and participating teachers were used to assess achievements.

Tasks to assess literacy learning in Malawi and Sri Lanka

The tasks were designed to assess children’s abilities to communicate in different communicative contexts. In assessing Oracy and Reading, teachers were asked to select six to ten children in their classes on the basis of whom they thought were ‘good’, ‘average’ and ‘weak’ communicators. Once they had made their selection, they were to write the names of these children on Record Sheets which were provided. For the assessment of writing teachers were able to select all the children in their classes. Over the course of the research, the communicative competencies of the selected samples of children were assessed. Teachers recorded the results on the record sheets, and in the case of writing, collected corpora of texts from their students.

Because of the diversity of the student samples, on these scores of children aged nine to 10 years (junior primary in Malawi and year 4 in Sri Lanka are reported here).

Developing a framework for the assessment of literacy learning

As described in chapter 3, teachers met in groups on several occasions to discuss the samples of children’s work. Each teacher brought to these meetings, samples of children’s records (oral language was recorded verbatim on the ‘teacher record sheet’), their own assessment of the level these samples had achieved and the teachers written comments of the work, justifying the level awarded. Teachers were encouraged to bring samples of those children’s work who they had rated as ‘doing well’, ‘average performance’ and ‘experiencing difficulties’.

At the meetings teachers worked in small groups in which they exchanged the samples of student’s work. The went about the task of studying these samples in order to determine what it is that children do when confronted by the given tasks. They looked at the comments written by the class teacher and the levels awarded to each sample. On this basis, teachers began to draft statements describing each level.

Once the descriptions for each level had been decided, a second sample of records was selected. Each teacher was provided with a scoring sheet and rated each record. The level of agreement was high amongst teachers when these records were subjected to a statistical reliability procedure (Cohen’s Kappa).

This exercise allowed teachers to refine the level descriptions they had agreed on earlier to accommodate a wider variety of student work.

The level descriptions differ between countries, but not markedly, and also between English and national languages within each country. The level descriptions for English in both cases were lower that the expectations expressed in formal curriculum documents of what students could achieve in the national languages at each level.

The literacy scale below is an example for the assessments conducted in English in Malawi.

The Literacy Scale and Level Descriptors

Oracy

Level 1

The child shows awareness of the context and can name things in the illustration. The child is capable of making short sentences or statements about things in the illustration.

Level 2

The child shows an awareness of the context and can describe individual things or events in the illustration in simple terms. There is some evidence of the use of conjunctions.

Level 3

The child understands the context portrayed in the illustration and is able to describe events and items in the illustration in a simple and more complex sentences. The child is also begins to interpret the illustration and to reason or question beyond what is visible.

Level 4

The child understand the context portrayed in the illustration and is able to talk fluently about the events and items using a wide range of vocabulary and sentences in which meaning is embedded in complex ways. The child is able to interpret the illustration and reason and question what is not visible

Administering Oral Language Tasks in Malawi

The tasks comprised of an illustration, taken from language books for ten year olds children in both countries (see example on the next page). The selected students were to look at the illustration and talk about it. Teachers were provided with Record Sheets and recorded what children said verbatim, as far as was possible.

An illustration of the task is shown overleaf, and the instructions to teachers and teacher record forms are contained in the appendices.

The Samples

In Malawi, 270 samples of children’s use of English language were collected and the same children were assessed again in Chichewa. The age range was nine to ten year olds. In Sri Lanka, 60 samples of children’s oral use of English language were collected; 20 samples of children’s oral use of Tamil; and 80 samples of their use of Sinhala were collected.

Interpreting the Literacy Profiles

The following literacy profiles were constructed through an analysis of all samples of children’s work in relation to the literacy levels developed in each country.

The results are not intended to be compared between countries nor between languages. The profiles show however what children are achieving in each language, in each country, in relation to the expected standards set by teachers.

Even though level statements are different for each country and within each country in relation to languages, teachers set an arbitrary standard, level 3 in each case, as the desired norm to be achieved by at least 50% of children.

This gives us a basis for interpreting the results of each country in terms of children’s achievements in relation to the benchmarks set for each learning area.

Assessing Oracy: Malawi

The illustration on the following page shows the task used to assess the use of oral language in Malawi. The profiles of achievement are shown below.

ENGLISH - JUNIOR PRIMARY ILLUSTRATION FOR ORAL TASKS - WORKSHEET 1

Illustration of the Language Task - Assessing Oracy in Malawi

Profiles of Achievement
Speaking in English and Chichewa

Figure 1: Profile of Oral Competence - English

Figure 1 shows that 22 percent of children achieved Level 1. 38.8 percent of children achieved Level 2 while 27.7 percent achieved Level 3. Only 11.1 percent of children achieved Level 4.

Figure 2: Profile of Oral Competence (Chichewa)

Figure 2 shows that 12.2 percent of children achieved level 1. 32.9 percent of children achieved level 2 while 40.7 percent achieved level 3. Only 14.4% of children achieved level 4.

EXAMPLES OF INDIVIDUAL CHILDREN’S PERFORMANCES FOR EACH LEVEL

The following examples drawn from oral samples in Malawi gives an illustration of the kinds of work considered to be at levels 1-4. In these examples, the verbatim records as written by the teachers are illustrated in the boxes below and the teachers comments, justifying their decisions to award a particular level, are also reproduced.

Level 1

Box 1 - Example of verbatim record of oral language

‘A bicycle, a pump, a tube, tyre, basin, water, bell, carrier, shoes, two boys, trousers, puncture. I am mending my bicycle. To find the puncture wika tayala m’madzi apeze puncture ndi kumata, ndi kupopa ndi kukwera’.

In this example, the child simply names items in the illustration. An attempt is made to construct the events illustrated in the picture but the child fails to follow through completely in English and completes the description in Chichewa.

The teacher has this to say about the child’s performance.

Box 2 - Teacher comments and reasons for awarding level

‘Chifuniro is weak. He only mentions parts of the bicycle and other things he sees in the picture. But he fails to describe what is going on in English He knows what is going on thus mending a puncture but he fails to put the description in proper language. His imagination is quite real according to what the illustration is about. The information given is relevant to the illustration. He knew that it was about mending a picture’.

Level 2

Box 3 - Example of verbatim record of oral language

‘I can see a man, a pump, a tube, a tyre, basin of water, handles, a chair, a band, a chain. They are mending my bicycle. A tube has a puncture. Aika m’madzi kuti awone chibowo ndi’ kumata. a kemmata aika mu tyre ndi kupopa’.

In this example, the child names items in the illustration but there is an attempt to construct simple sentences. The child also is clearly able to construct the events illustrated in the picture but like the child above, fails to follow through completely in English and completes the description in Chichewa.

The teacher has this to say about the child’s performance.

Box 4 - Teacher comments and reasons for awarding level

‘This pupil is not quite good or weak but average because he can understand what is taught and he does well in certain aspects. In this issue he only lacked vocabulary to expand his illustration. The information given was more relevant to the illustration’.

Level 3

Box 5 - Example of verbatim record of oral language

‘I can see a basin of water, a tyre, a tube, a pump, a boy, a man, spokes, a chain. The boys are mending a bicycle. A kupopa kuti apeze puncture. take the tube from the tyre then put in the basin of water to find where the puncture is. Then atenga mwale kupalira chibowa ndi kumata ndi mphira. Ndiye alowetsa mu tyre ndi kupopa’.

In this example, there is evidence of an attempt to construct simple sentences. The child is also able to construct and interpret the events illustrated in the picture even where the actions aren’t themselves illustrated. For example the child say ‘take the tube from the tyre then put it in the basin of water to find where the puncture is’. The child also lapses in to Chichewa to complete the description.

The teacher has this to say about the child’s performance.

Box 6 - Teacher comments and reasons for awarding level

‘This girl is quite good. She tried to mention all what she sees in the picture. She was also able to say what was being done in the picture - only that she failed to say everything in English. The information given was quite relevant to the illustration. She said everything about mending a puncture and it was good’.

Level 4

Box 7 - Example of verbatim record of oral language

‘Once there was a boy who was walking along the road. at the same time he saw a man sitting with his bicycle and the boy said. ‘hello sir, what are you doing?’ ‘I am mending my bicycle’ the man answered. ‘Can I help you’ a boy asked. ‘what should I do ? First take out the tube from the tyre and find out the puncture. I will prepare it for you’ So the boy is helping the man.

In this example, the child is aware of the context of events. She is able to identify what is happening in the illustration and describes these in clear sentences. The child has expanded on the events and has brought her imagination into play. She talks of events ‘before’ those illustrated in the picture, thus widening the context.

The teacher has this to say about the child’s performance.

Box 8 - Teacher comments and reasons for awarding level

‘This girl has described the situation in an imaginative way. The description of the picture is true and relevant. She has expanded upon the illustration and her language is very good.

Assessing Oracy: Sri Lanka

Tasks to assess oral competencies in Sri Lanka

As in Malawi, the tasks were designed to assess children’s abilities to communicate orally in different communicative contexts. Here too, teachers were asked to select six to ten children in their classes on the basis of whom they thought were ‘good’, ‘average’ and ‘weak’ communicators. Once they had made their selection, they were to write the names of these children on a Record Sheet which was provided. Over the course of the research, the communicative competencies of the selected sample of children were assessed.

Administering The Task

The task comprised of an illustration, taken from a reading book in for ten year old children in Sri Lanka - ‘Let’s Go to the Fair’. The illustration is of a mother and her two children buying fruit from a fruit stall. The selected students were to look at the illustration and talk about it.

The English task is shown overleaf. The tasks in Tamil and Sinhalese are contained in the appendices.

The Sample

60 samples of children’s oral competence in English were collected. 20 samples of work were collected from Tamil speaking schools and 80 samples of work from Sinhalese speaking children.

Example of task to assess oracy in Sri Lanka

Profiles of Achievement
Speaking in Tamil, Sinhala and English

Figure 4: Profile of Oral Competence - Tamil

Figure 4 shows that 50% of students are achieving levels 1 and 2 in oracy in Tamil. 20% are achieving Level 3 and 30% level 4.

Figure 5: Profile of Oral Competence - Sinhala

Figure 5 shows that 26.4 % of children are achieving Level 1, 43.3% Level 2, 20.7% Level 3 and 9.4% Level 4.

Figure 6: Profile of Oral Competence - English

Figure 6 shows that 27.7% of children achieved Level 1, 42.5% Level 2, 20.3 percent Level 3 and 9.2% Level 4.

Figure 7: Profile of Oral Competence (Tamil, Sinhala and English)

Figure 7 shows the profiles of achievement in oracy for all three Language groups.

EXAMPLES OF INDIVIDUAL CHILDREN’S PERFORMANCES FOR EACH LEVEL IN ENGLISH (SRI LANKA)

The following examples drawn from oral samples in Sri Lanka gives an illustration of the kinds of work considered to be at levels 1-4. In these examples, the verbatim records as written by the teachers are illustrated in the boxes below and the teachers comments, justifying their decisions to award a particular level, are also reproduced.

Level 1

Box 9 - Example of verbatim record of oral language

‘There are house. There are bad. There are boy. There are two birds. Play cricket. Tree big. It is sun. There bad (bat). House. Sun sky

Teachers were asked to make a judgement of each child’s writing proficiency and to complete notes on each child according to the following questions:

1. Does the child talk fluently?

In this example, the child simply names items in the illustration. According to the teacher the child did not talk fluently, and hesitated very much. She also mispronounced many words.

2. Does the child describe the illustration in an imaginative way (describing imaginative events) or simply describe the objects in the picture?

According to the teacher for the example given above, the child showed little imagination and simply tried to name the objects in the picture.

3. Is the information relevant to the illustration?

In this example the child confined their description to what they could see in the illustration.

The teacher completed the record as follows:

Box 10 - Teacher comments and reasons for awarding level

This child is very weak in building up sentences. Most of her sentences were grammatically wrong e.g. there are house, there are boy. She didn’t have confidence at all. In order to make her speak I had to point to the objects in the picture. Therefore I judged this child to be at a level one in speaking.

Level 2

Box 11 - Example of verbatim record of oral language

This is a picture. There is a big tree. There is a sun. There is a house. There are birds in the sky. There are flowers. There are boys. They are playing cricket. They are not happy. There are windows. Tall boy is wearing a T-shirt. There is a roof. There is a fence. There are birds. There are mountains. There are trees. The sun is in the sky. There are clouds.

1. Does the child talk fluently?

According to the teacher the child spoke without any hesitation and her speaking was fluent.

2. Does the child describe the illustration in an imaginative way (describing imaginative events) or simply describe the objects in the picture?

According to the teacher the child described the illustration in an imaginative way e.g. ‘there are two boys. The boys are playing cricket. The ball is in the window.’

3. Is the information relevant to the illustration?

In this example all the information was confined to what was visible in the illustration and as such relevant.

The teacher completed this part of the record as follows:

Box 12 - Teacher comments and reasons for awarding level

In building up her sentences she made a good attempt. She gave meaningful sentences relevant to the picture but she made some grammatical mistakes in describing what has happened. Her description was good. Her pronunciation was good and her description of the picture was mostly accurate. On the basis of this evidence I judge her to be Level two.

Level 3

Box 13 - Example of verbatim record of oral language

‘This is a garden. It is a sunny day. The time is twelve o’clock. There is a big tree. There is a ball. There is a wicket. There are two boys. There are flowers. There are birds. There are mountains. There are clouds. There is a fence around the house. The boys are playing cricket. They are not happy. The ball break the glass. The tall boy is wearing a T-shirt. One boy is wearing pads.

1. Does the child talk fluently?

According to the teacher the child spoke very fluently and her pronunciation was good.

2. Does the child describe the illustration in an imaginative way (describing imaginative events) or simply describe the objects in the picture?

The child described the picture in an imaginative manner and the teacher points out that although the child described the situation in the picture she used her imagination on several occasions e.g. ‘the boys are not happy’.

3. Is the information relevant to the illustration?

In this example all the information provide was relevant to the illustration.

The teacher completed this part of the record as follows:

Box 14 - Teacher comments and reasons for awarding level

In building up her sentences she used the same structure e.g. there is..., There are... By looking at the position of the sun she guessed the time of day correctly. The child says ‘There is a sun. The time is twelve o’clock.’ She made one mistake i.e. ‘the ball break the glass.’ but overall her speech was very good. This girl wanted to describe the situation not the objects. Her sentences are very meaningful. I think she is a good girl in her speaking therefore she was judged to be level 3.

Assessing reading in Malawi and Sri Lanka

Reading Tasks

The reading tasks were designed to gather evidence of children as independent readers. The task provides a broad assessment of children’s reading, allowing them to demonstrate their ability to read aloud from a text, show what they have understood and give a personal response.

Reading books in Malawi and Sri Lanka used at the levels of education for the children involved in the study were selected and extracts were selected to serve as the reading task.

A ‘running record’ was developed, (a matrix containing a copy of the text to be read, with each word contained in a separate box in the matrix and with blank spaces beneath each word). Teachers would follow the reading and mark the record for each reader, indicating accuracy, self correcting strategies, words which are omitted and so on.

An assessment record sheet was also provided for each reader. On this form, teachers would record comments on how the child read, what they understood from the text and their attitude towards the text itself.

The Literacy Scale and Level Descriptors (Reading)

The following levels and level descriptions were decided upon by teachers in Malawi. A similar set of descriptions for each level was decided upon by teachers in Sri Lanka. It is worth noting again that there were slight differences in what teachers expected reading levels should be in English and for national languages.

Level 1

The child mis-reads most words and has no strategy for reading unfamiliar words. She does not show an awareness or an understanding of what she is reading.

Level 2

The child recognises some words consistently and shows awareness of punctuation. The reader shows an appreciation of the text.

Level 3

The child reads with accuracy and shows understanding of what he or she is reading through expression, volume and emphasis. She expresses opinions about the text.

Level 4

The child reads with accuracy, shows understanding by reading through expression. She has the ability to express opinions about main events and ideas.

Assessing Reading: Malawi

The illustration on the following page is an example of a task used to assess the reading of 10 year olds in Malawi.

Their achievements are profiled below.

An example of the reading task - Malawi

ENGLISH - JUNIOR PRIMARY READING TASK

Dziko and the msuku tree Dziko lived in a village near a big forest. He was a strong boy, but he did not like to work. One day he sat under a tree in the forest. Suddenly he heard a noise. He listened. Somebody was singing, but Dziko did not know the song. He stood up. Then he saw an old man. He was talking to a tree. He said, ‘Mzuku tree, my children want something to eat. They are hungry. But I don’t have flour or fish. Please, help my children. They want some nsima and fish.

Profiles of Achievement
Reading in English and Chichewa

Figure 8: Profile of Reading (English)

Figure 8 shows that 13% of children achieved Level 1, 37.6, Level 2, 32.4, Level 3 and 17% achieved Level 4.

Figure 9: Profile of Reading (Chichewa)

Figure 9 shows that in Reading Chichewa, 6.5% of children achieved Level 1, 30.5, Level 2, 39.2%, Level 3 and 23.8% achieved level 4.

Figure 10: Profile of Reading (English and Chichewa)

Figure 10 shows the profile of achievement for Reading in English and Chichewa.

EXAMPLES OF INDIVIDUAL CHILDREN’S PERFORMANCES

The following examples of teacher comments based on evidence from both the running records and reading records of children’s reading in Malawi, provides an illustration of how decisions were made in awarding different levels.

The example shown here is that of a child who was awarded Level 2.

ENGLISH - JUNIOR PRIMARY READING RECORD

Child’s name:	.............................	Class:	..............................
Class teacher’s name:	.............................
Name of school:	.............................

Dziko	lived	in	a	village	near
a	big	forest	He	was	a
strong	boy	but	he	did	not
like	work	One	day	he	sat
	A walk
under	a	tree	in	the	forest
Suddenly	he	heard	a	noise	He
listed.	Somebody	was	singing,	but	Dziko
did	not	know	the	song	He
stood	up.	Then	he	saw	an
old	man.	He	was	talking	to
a	tree.	He	said,	‘Msuku	tree,
				Mzuku
my	children	want	something	to	eat
They	are	hungry.	But	I	don’t
have	any	flour	or	fish.	Please,
		A Floor
help	my	children.	They	want	some
nsima	and	fish.

What to do

1. Complete the reading record as follows:

A	For words that the child attempts but cannot read (when he or she makes an incorrect attempt at a word, write in the space what he or she actually said).
X	For any words that the child cannot read and does not attempt. (When a child makes an incorrect attempt at a word, write in the space what is actually said.)

2. Comment on the child’s reading performance. Use the set questions to help you.

ENGLISH - JUNIOR PRIMARY
READING RECORD

Analysis continued...

a) Does the child respond to what he or she is reading through expression?

b) Does the child read with accuracy?

c) Does the child show an awareness of punctuation, for example by pausing in appropriate places?

Make a judgement about whether the child is able to re-tell the context of the passage, including, at least, two of the main points and whether she can make a sensible prediction about what might happen next.

4. Make a judgement about children’s abilities to talk in simple terms about the extent to which they find reading interesting or enjoyable. You could, for example, ask the child questions like: which aspects of the story did you enjoy/not enjoy?

Assessing Reading: Sri Lanka

The illustration on the following page is an example of a task used to assess the reading of 10 year olds in Sri Lanka.

Their achievements are profiled below.

An example of the reading task - Sri Lanka

LETS GO TO THE FAIR

1
Rani:	Mother, let’s go to the Sunday fair.
Mother:	All right.
Rohan:	Can I come, too ?
Mother:	Oh, yes. Rani, bring the bag, please.
Rohan:	Let’s go by bus.

Profiles of Achievement
Reading in English, Tamil and Sinhala

Figure 11: Profile of Reading (English)

Figure 11 shows that 17% of children achieved Level 1, 44.2% achieved Level 2, 30% achieved Level 3 and 8.8% achieved Level 4.

Figure 12: Profile of Reading (Tamil)

Figure 12 shows that 5.5% of children achieved Level 1, 31.5% achieved Level 2, 37.2% achieved Level 3 and 25.8% achieved Level 4.

Figure 13: Profile of Reading (Sinhala)

Figure 13 shows that 6.5% of children achieved Level 1, 35.5%, Level 2, 43%, Level 3 and 13% achieved Level 4.

Figure 14: Profile of Reading (English, Tamil and Sinhala)

Figure 14 shows the profile of achievement in Reading for English, Tamil and Sinhala Examples of Running Records and Teacher comments

RESEARCH PROJECT ON ASSESSING THE QUALITY OF LEARNING AND TEACHING -1996 (NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION - SRI LANKA & BRISTOL UNIVERSITY - UNITED KINGDOM)

ENGLISH ~ YEAR IV - READING RECORDS

Passage 3: The present

UNCLE:	Hello,	Saman!	How	are	you?
	Ö	Ö	Ö	× do	Ö
SAMAN:	I’m	fine	thank	you.
	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö
UNCLE:	Hello,	Mihiri!	How	are	you?
	Ö	Ö	Ö	× Æ	Ö
MIHIRI:	I’m	fine	thank	you	uncle.
	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö
SAMAN:	What’s	in	the	box,	uncle?
	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö
UNCLE:	It’s	a	present	for	you
	Ö	Ö	× pasant	Ö	Ö
	and	Mihiri.
	Ö	Ö
MIHIRI:	Oh!	What	is	it?
	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö
UNCLE:	Can	you	guess?
	Ö	Ö	× gheese
SAMAN:	Is	it	a	toy?
	Ö	Ö	Ö	× you
MIHIRI:	Is	it	a	book?
	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö
SAMAN:	Can	we	eat	it?
	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö
MIHIRI:	Can	we	drink	it?
	Ö	Ö	Ö	Ö
UNCLE:	No,	No,	No.
	Ö	Ö	Ö
SAMAN:	We	can’t	guess.
	Ö	Ö	× geese
UNCLE:	It’s	a	dog.
	Ö	Ö	Ö

Uncle - Reading was nice. Rising and falling were in his reading; But in some places he dragged some words and stopped reading because he couldn’t read the next word easily, example like present, and guess. His presentation was good.

Saman - Questions were not presented in proper way that’s mean, rising and falling were not there.

Mihiri - She was very fluent in her reading. She has no hesitation and no mispronuncation. Expressing ideas was good. Rising and falling was there.

Assessing Writing in Malawi and Sri Lanka

Writing Tasks

The writing tasks were designed to gather evidence of children as independent writers The tasks were interested in assessing whether children could communicate meaning to a reader and whether they had an awareness of wide range of the functional aspects of language, including grammar, punctuation and the conventions of spelling and handwriting.

The tasks took as their starting points, ideas related to passages from books, in some cases those related to the reading task (Sri Lanka) or in Malawi, to a text read in class.

The Literacy Scale and Level Descriptors (Writing)

The following levels and level descriptions were decided upon by teachers in Malawi. A similar set of descriptions for each level was decided upon by teachers in Sri Lanka. It is worth noting again that there were differences in what teachers emphasised as being important for each level depending on whether the assessments were in English or in the national languages.

Level 1

The writing is organised in words and phrases. There is no evidence of use of punctuation or consistent orientation in shaping letters.

Level 2

The writing communicates meaning in simple words and phrases. The is some awareness of the use of full stops. Letters have clear shapes and orientations.

Level 3

The writing communicates meaning in narrative or non-narrative forms. Mainly simple sentences are used. Ideas are in some sequence. There is a clear awareness of the use of full stops, capitals and some with-in sentence punctuation.

Level 4

The writing communicates meaning through the use of simple and complex sentences. There is an awareness of the reader. Ideas are expressed in a logical way. There is good use of both between sentence and within sentence punctuation. Letters are accurately formed and consistent in size.

Assessing Writing: Malawi

An example of a task to assess the writing of 10 year olds in Malawi is provided on the following page.

Their achievements are profiled below.

ENGLISH - JUNIOR PRIMARY
WRITING TASKS

NOTES TO THE TEACHER These tasks are designed to assess children’s capabilities as independent writers. What to do Task 1 Aural task: extending and adapting Read the passage The Hyena and the Hare to the class. Ask the children to make up their own ending to the story Each child should write in his or her own words on the worksheet provided. Task 2 Writing task: short story Read the story In the Hospital to the children. Provide the children with Pupil Sheet JP Writing 2. Ask the children to look at the picture. Have a short discussion about the picture and the dialogue you have read. Ask the children to write their own version of the story based on the picture. Task 3 Factual writing Divide the class into groups of two or three. Ask the children to collect information and complete the form on Pupil Sheet JP Writing 3. You should suggest to the pupils how they can go about obtaining the information, but you should not give them the information yourself.

Profiles of Achievement
Writing in English and Chichewa

Figure 15: Profile of Writing (English)

Figure 15 shows that for writing a story in English 23.3% of children achieved Level 1, 30.2% achieved Level 2, 40.5% achieved Level 3 and 6% achieved Level 4.

Figure 16: Profile of Writing (Chichewa)

Figure 16 shows that for writing a story in Chichewa, 11.5% of children achieved Level 1, 35.5%, Level 2, 42.8%, Level 3, and 10.2% achieved Level 4.

Figure 17: Profile of Writing (English and Chichewa)

Figure 17 shows the profile of achievement for story writing in English and Chichewa.

Examples of Story Writing - Malawi

ENGLISH
PUPIL SHEET JP WRITING 2

Child’s name:	....................
Class:	....................
Date:	....................

AT THE HOSPITAL

Dialogue At the hospital

Doctor	What’s the girl’s name?
Mrs Shumba	Wezi.
Doctor	What’s her problem?
Mrs Shumba	Last night, she didn’t sleep. She cried and cried. She had a headache and a stomachache.
Doctor	I see. How old is she?
Mrs Shumba	She’s twelve.
Doctor	I think she’s got malaria. Give her these tablets: Four tablets today, four tomorrow and two the day after tomorrow. She’ll be all right.
Mrs Shumba	Thank you doctor. You said, four tablets today, four tomorrow and two the day after?
Doctor	Yes, that’s right.

Examples of Story Writing - Malawi

AT THE HOSPITAL

Assessing Writing: Sri Lanka

An example of a task to assess the writing of ten year olds in Sri Lanka is provided on the following page.

Their achievements are profiled below.

An example of the writing task - Sri Lanka

RESEARCH PROJECT ON ASSESSING THE QUALITY OF LEARNING AND TEACHING -1996
(NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION - SRI LANKA & BRISTOL UNIVERSITY - UNITED KINGDOM)

Profiles of Achievement
Writing in English, Tamil and Sinhala

Figure 18: Profile of Writing (English)

Figure 18 shows that for story writing in English, 83.6% of the children in Sri Lanka achieved Level 1, 13.6%, Level 2 and 2.5% achieved Level 3. No students in the sample achieved Level 4.

Figure 19: Profile of Writing (Tamil)

Figure 19 shows that for story writing in Tamil, 18.5% of students achieved Level 1. 37.3% achieved Level 2, 38.7% achieved level 3 and 5.5% Level 4.

Figure 20: Profile of Writing (Sinhala)

Figure 20 shows that for the writing of stories in Sinhala, 15.3% of children achieved Level 1, 36.7% Level 2, 39% Level 3 and 9% achieved Level 4.

Figure 21: Profile of Writing (English, Tamil and Sinhala)

Figure 21 shows the profile of achievement for story writing in Sri Lanka.

An example of the writing task - Sri Lanka

RESEARCH PROJECT ON ASSESSING THE QUALITY OF LEARNING AND TEACHING -1996
(NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION - SRI LANKA & BRISTOL UNIVERSITY - UNITED KINGDOM)

ENGLISH
PUPIL SHEET (WRITING)

Part 3 - Assessing Mathematics Learning

General Principles

Learning Mathematics was assessed in Malawi and Sri Lanka. In the case of Malawi, assessments were made in English while in Sri Lanka, the tasks were locally translated so that assessments were made in Sinhala and Tamil as appropriate.

In each case the assessment tasks emerged from the researcher working with local teachers and, in Sri Lanka, curriculum officers.

Tasks to assess Mathematics Learning

Two areas of the curriculum were selected, one for each of the two rounds of assessment. In the first round the focus was on number and operations on numbers. In the second, attention was given to measurement. Some tasks were designed to be undertaken by individual pupils who had to provide written answers. Other tasks invited pupils to work in small groups which produced written outcomes of their work both as a group and individually. Teachers were encouraged to observe the working of such group activities and to note particularly the nature of the communication which took place.

The tasks and instructions to teachers on how they should be administered are contained in the appendices. Examples and discussion of these follow.

The Sample

Teachers were asked to select all the students from their classes to participate in the research. About 300 students took part in the mathematics assessments (Junior Primary) in Malawi and about 150 students in the fourth primary class in Sri Lanka.

Awarding Levels

The use of Levels was attempted, to parallel that used in English. However the number of small items comprising the overall task made distinctions more difficult. A simple overall level grading was given following analysis based on the number of items pupils were successful in answering. Success in answering was not simply dependent on the final answer, but on evidence of working where this was appropriate.

The tasks in Mathematics

In each of the two rounds of testing there was an attempt to use both standard and less common type of test item on mathematical content in the mathematics syllabus at the relevant grade level. It was hoped that teachers would be encouraged to explore how their pupils responded to different types of question.

(i) Number

In the number items there were examples of

· questions given orally and others which were written,

· questions involving pure numbers and those where numbers arose in problem situations

· problems leading to a single answer and those involving some investigation with perhaps multiple answers.

MATHEMATICS - INFANT GROUP TASKS - NUMBER NOTES TO THE TEACHER This task is intended to encourage pupils to use their number skills to explore a simple money situation in small groups. We shall be interested in how they work together, what they find out, how they use their number skills and how they tell others about their findings. What to do Discuss this story with the pupils: Kodi has two coins . What amounts can he make with these coins? [He finds that he could make It, 5t and 6t.] He draws pictures to show how he could do this: 1t 5t 6t Two friends Mpango and Pezani have four coins . Work with some friends to see how many different amounts you can make. Draw pictures on the Pupil Worksheet to show the coins you would use to make each amount. Later we will share in the class what we have found. Divide the class into small groups of three or four pupils. Each group can work on a shared Pupil Worksheet. Observe how the pupils work together and he difficulties arise. After they have worked on this problem have a class discussion session in which groups report their findings. Encourage them to explain clearly and check that other pupils understand. Collect the Pupil Worksheets. Following the session, make some notes under the following headings: · What happened in the groups during the group work sessions? · What did the pupils find out? · How well were they able to communicate their findings? · How were their number skills used? · What problems arose? We shall discuss these experiences in our workshop at a later stage.

In the event with widespread participating teachers and schools, together with the only occasional contact between researchers and teachers, it became evident that the more subtle elements of feedback were being lost through problems of communication and the unfamiliarity teachers had in interpreting many of phenomena occurring in the learning of mathematics. A traditional expectation of items being right or wrong led to marking and summing of scores in spite of the analysis proposed. It proved too demanding to provide the security of the familiar, together with the challenge of that which was in form if not in mathematical content new to the mathematical experience of the teachers. Considerably more time would have been necessary with the teachers to support them in developing more usefully diagnostic testing with their pupils.

In general pupils in both countries showed themselves relatively competent at the straight computation, were more troubled at problems which required the selection of the appropriate operation and often required considerable support and guidance in those problems which were of a more open and non standard type. In the end the most useful outcome was the variety of items developed with the teachers, giving evidence of ways in which the basic number skills can be applied in interesting and less closed situations.

(ii) Measurement

The selection of activities in this round of assessment was designed to provide data relating to skills and concepts but not the application of formulae which are often over emphasised in elementary work on measurement. Pupils had to find the length and area of shapes drawn on a grid but also to draw shapes according to given specifications.

They were also required to measure the size of a drawn rectangle and of the task sheet.

On dotty paper we can draw triangles using a dot at each corner.

.	.	.		.	.	.
.	.	.		.	.	.
.	.	.		.	.	.

Use the dotty paper below to draw as many different triangles as you can on a nine dot grid. (Draw one triangle on each grid.)

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Write a few sentences about what you have found.

Finally there was a more investigatory task in drawing different triangles on a 3x3 grid. In the latter task teachers were again given guidance on some specific things to observe and several key questions were raised with teachers. However the research mechanisms did not provide for the effective collection and analysis of this data. It remains to be followed up in a situation where researcher and teachers can work more closely together over an extended period.

The results from Sri Lankan schools in relation to measurement revealed some striking contrasts in the performance on particular items and sometimes between schools. Three examples may serve to illustrate:

(i) Students were given an example of a ‘snake’ drawn along the lines of a grid and shown how its ‘length’ could be found. They were then asked:

(a) to find the length of a given snake and then (b) to draw snakes of the lengths indicated. In most schools the success rate on these two types of item was not very different but at two schools there was a striking difference - nearly 100% success rate for the first item, only about 30% for the second type which required the inverse approach. Reasons for this difference would be worth closer examination but might suggest a very limited range of experience with length.

(ii) Two striking outcomes emerged from the items which required actual measurement:

(a) in some schools, the level of performance on this skill was very low. This could simply reflect the timing of the assessment in relation to delivery of part of the curriculum or the availability of measuring instruments in some schools. Alternatively, it could arise from a very theoretical treatment of measurement in which experience working with the units and tools of measurement were not regarded as important

(b) in a number of schools, including some of those with the strongest results in general, there was a marked difference between the success in measuring length of lines across the page when compared with those up the page. In some cases the success rate was only half for the ‘vertical’ lines. Results for the smaller and larger rectangles to be measured were not very different.

(iii) In both the finding of areas and the drawing of shapes with given areas, pupils’ success rate dropped rapidly when the shapes were not rectangular. In attempting to find the area of a drawn right angle triangle, the majority apparently adopted a counting squares approach but this seldom led to the correct answer. There was little evidence of a holistic view with the triangle being seen as half the related rectangle. As a consequence only 25% were successful on this item compared with the success rate of about 50% or better on all the other items.

Profiles of Achievement
Mathematics

Mathematics Profile (Malawi)

Mathematics Profile (Sri Lanka)

[Previous Page] [Top of Page] [Next Page]