Assessment Quality at two Ethiopian Universities: Requirements versus Practices

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which learning assessment practices fulfill assessment quality requirements. Two sorts of questionnaires were used to collect data from teachers/researchers, and MA/MSC and PhD students of Education and English Language at two Ethiopian universities. The results have shown that assessment tasks, contents, tools and procedures at the universities hardly fulfilled some desirable assessment requirements including making assessment tasks and contents free from all kinds of biases, mirroring the required skills/knowledge in real life, empowering teachers to assess what they value, encouraging deep approaches to learning, and guaranteeing learners' awarded grades to represent the levels. Some assessment tools, procedures, and practices also failed to fulfill assessment quality requirements. It has, therefore, been recommended that all parties should make utmost conscious efforts to ascertain alignment of assessment practices, procedures and contents with available theories/requirements on learning assessment quality.