Practice and Perception of Secondary Schools Physics Teachers Towards Continuous Assessment in Osun State Nigeria: Pedagogical and Curriculum Implications

Abstract

The demand for science teachers to cover the curriculum contents as a result of few periods
allotted to teach and the involvement in practical activities is enormous. Besides, the paucity of
science teachers especially in Physics might be a constraint to practice of continuous assessment
which is germane to curriculum implementation. Therefore, the study investigated the practice of
continuous assessment among physics teachers in senior secondary school in Osun State
Nigeria. It also assessed the opinions of Physics teachers concerned about the practice of
continuous assessment; and further examined speculated factors that can likely affect the
implementation of continuous assessment. These were carried out with a view to encapsulating
pedagogical and curriculum implications. The study adopted descriptive survey research. The
population comprised physics teachers in government senior secondary school in Osun State,
Nigeria. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 31 Physics teachers from 16 randomly
selected schools in the State. An Instrumentation titled “Evaluation of Teachers Implementation
of Continuous Assessment’’ (ETICA) of four sections was used to collect data for the study. The
instrument was subjected to content validity by two expert judgments. The reliability of the
instrument was established using Cronbach alpha for section B and C and found reliable at 0.75
and 0.81 while Section D was determined through Kuder -Richardson (KR-20) and found to be
0.72. Data collected were analyzed using mean, standard deviation and percentages to answer
the research questions. The results of the study showed that assessment of psychomotor and
affective domains was not attended to during continuous assessment practice, although the
teachers had positive opinions towards implementation of continuous assessment. The results of
the findings further speculated factors that can likely affect the implementation of continuous
assessment as perceived by the Physics teachers. Finally, Recommendations were made to
improve the implementation of continuous assessment.

Keywords: Practice, Perception, Physics Teachers, Continuous Assessment, Pedagogical
Implication and Curriculum Implication