SCIENCE TEACHERS’ AWARENESS AND UTILIZATION OF INNOVATIVE FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUES FOR ASSESSING STUDENTS IN SCIENCE CLASSROOMS IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

The growing need to survive in a 21st century global competitive society has presented the need to restructure the teaching and learning process to not just employ innovative instructional approaches that can promote learning but also formative assessment techniques that can help improve classroom instruction for effective delivery. In this light, the study sought to innovative formative assessment techniques (IFAT) for assessing students in science classrooms in Anambra state. Two research questions guided the study. A descriptive survey research design was adopted. 150 science subject teachers, drawn using simple random sampling technique, comprised the sample of the study. An instrument titled “Checklist on Science Teachers’ Awareness developed by the researchers for the teachers was used for data collection. The 50-item checklist was subjected to face and content validity by three experts and with a reliability coefficient of 0.82 established using Cronbach Alpha. Frequency count, percentages, weighted Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions. The findings of the study revealed that although science teachers are aware of some of these innovative formative assessment techniques, they however do not on the findings, it was then recommended among others that education stakeholders shosymposia, and conferences to educate teachers on these innovative assessment techniques and how to implement them in the classroom