INVESTIGATING THE QUALITIES OF ELT TEACHERS’ SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT IN THE CASE OF JELDU PREPARATORY SCHOOL WEST SHOA ZONE, OROMIA REGINAL STATE

Abstract

The main objective of the study was to investigate the qualities of English summative assessment in the case of Jeldu preparatory school. For this study, Descriptive research was employed in order to explore the qualities of summative assessment in line of the criteria stated under chapter two. The design used in the study was mixed designed as it was appropriate to describe the current state of the problem. Primary and secondary data sources were used and they were analyzed using descriptive statistics and narrated by words. The participants of the study were English teachers and school leaders selected by purposive and available sampling techniques respectively. Accordingly, the findings highlighted that English summative Assessment did not have valid and reliability qualities due to its little representation of sample contents students had learned in the course books and teachers’ little commitment in defining and relating objectives stated in teachers’ guide and English syllabus. This in turn made the assessment to have poor content validity. Focusing on one testing technique (multiple choices) and over emphasis given for grammar questions made assessment to be poor in discriminating students with different performance hence the result of majority student was in the same interval. Since teachers hardly discuss on overall result of the students’ after the exam was returned, the assessment had negative wash back effect on teaching and learning. The result also did not have consistency in consecutive academic years and across semesters and grade level so that this minimized the reliable quality of English summative Assessment. It was also obtained that English summative assessment result was not predictive description of their entrance result in spite of teachers’ perception to empower students for higher institution. Multiple choices testing technique had grammatical inconsistence, lack of clear instruction, mixing different contents with different skills, omission of listening skill, the presence of poor destructors, and repetition of similar responses that provided hint for the correct answer. Teachers should use different item types since each item types is used appropriately for the given objectives and determined by the unique advantages and limitations. Teachers are recommended to construct a two-way chart that relate objective stated in English course book/syllabus with contents and specify the nature of sample knowledge and skills appeared in summative assessment. Students should be given the chance to discuss on the exam with their teachers after the result has been returned so that they could get opportunity of learning from their errors made during assessment administration