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Using Teachers’ Knowledge of Bloom’s Taxonomy in Determining the Quality of Classroom Assessment in Secondary Schools
Get PDFThe Taxonomy of Educational Objectives provides the basis for curriculum and test development. A sound knowledge and the internalization of the Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives is paramount for any item writer to be able to construct fair and high-quality test items and other assessment tools in the classroom. Based on the syllabus, a specified number of questions are constructed depending on the weight accorded each topic area within the table of specification, which must span all the six levels of the instructional objectives. A test as an assessment technique is a tool or device that is used to obtain information about achievement, aptitude or intelligence level of learners. Teachers in schools who write test items and the professional item writers employed by both private and government schools must, as a matter of necessity, be versed in this aspect for them to measure accurately what they aim to measure so as to lend credence to the testing exercise. This study focused on the competence of secondary school teachers in assessing their students by finding out whether they are guided by Bloom’s levels of cognitive objectives. The purpose of the study was to find out how adequate the teachers spread their test items to cover the six levels of cognitive objectives that Bloom (1956) identified and were later revised by Anderson and Krathwohl (2001). The study aimed to determine how adequately the test items developed by the teachers cover the lower and higher levels of thinking in regard to the action verbs used in the test items. Three important questions were formulated to guide the study. The first one was; How satisfactory are teachers’ test items reflect the six levels of objectives? Secondly; to what extend do teachers test items measure thinking at lower and higher levels? Thirdly; how satisfactorily do teachers employ the use of action verbs in constructing test items? Two instruments were used to collect data; one was documentary review that is using past papers from two selected secondary schools in Makongo Ward. The second was structured questionnaire for 40 teachers. The data was analyzed qualitatively using content analysis. The findings revealed that secondary school teachers do not adequately employ the Bloom’s cognitive levels objectives in classroom assessment. Furthermore, the results from both documentary review and from the questionnaires indicated that most teachers were not sure whether they had the skills and competences for designing tests in their subjects using Bloom’s Taxonomy. Only few experienced teachers indicated that they had the skills and competences of test construction using both levels of Bloom’s cognitive objectives. From this study, it is concluded that classroom assessment is an area that requires more emphasis because most teachers are not trained in test construction skills
The Influence of Teachers’ Motivation on the Provision of Quality Community Education in Tanzania: Practices and Prospects in Kibaha District.
Get PDFThis study aimed at investigating the influence of teachers’ motivation on the provision of quality community secondary education in Kibaha District in Tanzania. Specifically, it intended to explore stakeholders’ conception on teachers’ motivation, to determine how practices of teachers’ motivation affect the provision of quality education, and to find out the teachers’ motivational challenges which limit the provision of quality education as well as to determine ways to improve teachers’ motivation. The study sample of 100 respondents selected purposely and randomly: There were 50 teachers, five school headmasters/mistress from five selected secondary schools, six TSD officers, one District Secondary Education Officer, one Ward Education Officer and eight education inspectors. The questionnaire, interview and documentation were used to collect information from the field. Quantitative data were analyzed and presented in, tables, figures and percentages. Qualitative data were analyzed and organized into themes. Results showed that teachers’ salary level are too low and do not satisfy their daily basic needs, they are not given allowances as required. In addition, they showed that their employers professionally develop a few number of teachers and the majority are not developed. The majority of teachers in community secondary schools are living in rented houses outside the school campuses due to shortage of school houses. This situation tires the teachers who come to school late due to the long walking distance from their homes. Further, the teaching and learning environment still too poor that de-motivate teachers. Therefore, the researcher recommends that all stakeholders should participate fully in maintaining teaching and learning environments to be conducive for teachers and learners and to ensure teachers are motivated to provide quality community secondary education
Is it Factor Accumulation or Total Factor Productivity Explaining the Economic Growth in ECOWAS? An Empirical Assessment
No full textThe purpose of this paper is to examine the sources of economic growth for the ECOWAS countries and to disentangle the relative contribution of each source. Malmquist Productivity Index decomposition is used to distinguish between technical efficiency versus technological change. In addition, an OLS and panel regression is used to estimate the contribution of various sources of growth to increases in GDP per capita. The paper concludes that 1) there was a modest increase in Productivity Index in ECOWAS countries (11.1% between 1981 and 2015) and 2) both factor accumulation and total factor productivity drive the economic growth with technological change and efficiency change being significantly greater contributors. Â
Food Poverty Dynamics and the Determinants across Households in Rural South South Nigeria
No full textThis article takes a dynamic approach to the study of poverty by investigating how households exist and stay in poverty over time in rural South South, Nigeria while focusing on the food dimension of poverty. South South region is at the center of multiple risk factors: natural, ecological, social and economic that result in highly volatile income and consumption pattern for households. Balancing potential welfare loss of rural households depends in part on the effectiveness of existing programmes. This article uses the panel data set for farm households collected by the National Bureau for Statistics between 2010 and 2012 to evaluate the effectiveness of these programmes. The article used the Multinomial Logit Model (MLM) to determine the conditional probability of poverty transition. The descriptive analysis and the econometric model both lead to results that illustrate the significance of food poverty determinants in a dynamic perspective
The Burden of Produce Cess and other Market Charges in Kenya’s Agriculture
No full textThe study was conducted to quantify the impact of produce cess and market charges on the cost structure of major agricultural commodities in Kenya under a newly devolved system of government. The study used a blend of qualitative and quantitative methods. Analysis of quantitative data involved computation of total costs, revenues, cess as a proportion of total cost, the impact of cess on costs and cost structure. To assess the impact of cess on costs, regression analysis was used. Results showed that produce cess significantly increased production and distribution costs. A one percent increase in cess raised the average distribution cost by 0.8% and average production cost by 0.2%. Therefore, county governments should review levying of cess to avoid charging it at multiple points. This is important for enhancing food and nutritional security, and improving incomes of households which are dependent on either production or trade in agricultural produce
Monetary Policy Shocks and Industrial Output in Nigeria: A Dynamic Effect
No full textThe study examines the dynamic effect of positive and negative monetary policy shocks on industrial output in Nigeria. Quarterly secondary data covering the period from 1986 to 2015 were used for the study. Applying Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL), the results shows that both negative monetary policy shocks and positive monetary policy shocks have negative effect on industrial output in Nigeria both in the short run and in the long run. The study recommend that monetary policy should the used with caution in Nigeria
The Impact of Human Capital Development in Employment Generation in Nigeria
No full textA major development issue in Nigeria is unemployment, despite a plethora of economic policies to guide labour absorption and utilisation in the country. Some major reasons for this unemployment challenges have been hinged on the level of human capital development as well as other socio-economic issues. Using the Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach, a quantitative analysis of the effect human capital in stimulating employment or otherwise was assessed in Nigeria for the period 1970-2014. It was discovered that the level of human capital was not sufficient to stimulate employment or reduce unemployment in Nigeria. Besides, it was discovered that population growth is really not the challenge for employment in Nigeria especially if human capital can be harnessed productively, and channelled towards viable and rewarding sectors of the econom
Government Expenditure, Efficiency and Economic Growth: A Panel Analysis of Sub Saharan African Low Income Countries
No full textThis paper analyzes the impact of government expenditure and efficiency on economic growth of Sub Saharan African low income countries. The paper uses a panel data of 25 Sub-Saharan African low income countries spanning from 2002 – 2015 which are obtained from World
Development Indicators (WDI) database. The paper executes panel unit root tests by using ImPesaran-Shin and Fisher ADF tests. The paper also uses Pedroni test to accomplish panel cointegration tests. Finally Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) is applied to answer the two research questions. The results demonstrate that increasing government expenditure accelerates economic growth of low income countries in Sub Saharan Africa. However, when government expenditure is interacted with government efficiency we find no evidence for government efficiency to boost the impacts of government expenditure on economic growth. Fiscal policy makers in Sub Saharan African low income region should consider the rationale for using their spending to accelerate economic growth
The Effect of Foreign Aid on Economic Growth in Ghana
No full textThis paper uses time series data from 1972 to 2012 on Ghana to test the hypothesis that foreign aid can promote growth in developing countries. The ARDL approach to cointegration (bounds test) was employed to examine both the long run and short run relationships between aid and economic growth. The results of the bounds test showed that there is cointegration between foreign aid and economic growth in Ghana. This was further confirmed by the error correction term which was very significant and correctly signed. The error correction term showed that the speed of convergence to long run equilibrium is moderate. From the results, labour, capital and government expenditure have positive impact on economic growth in Ghana in both the long run and the short run whereas foreign aid and interest payment on external debt have negative impact on growth. In order to derive a positive benefit of foreign aid, we recommend the provision of economic aid which is geared towards capital formation and skills development of labour through education and training rather than political aid since the results show that capital and labour have positive impact on economic growth. We also recommend the provision of more grants and less loans as aid to Ghana because interest payment on external debt has been found in the study to have negative effect on economic growth because most foreign aid are not invested in projects with direct future cash flows
Effects of Food Prices on Under-five and Infant Mortality Rates in Sub-Saharan Africa
No full textOver the years, the rising food prices coupled with the prevailing food insecurity in the entire Sub-Saharan Africa region are perceived to be having debilitating effects on nutrition and health outcomes. This paper therefore examines the impact of rising food prices on under-five and infant mortality rates in 31 selected sub-Saharan African countries for the period 2001-2012 using the fixed effects, random effects, difference GMM and the system GMM. The results show that rising food prices exert significant adverse effects on both infant and under-five mortality rates in Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper suggests the need for increased government’s efforts toward increased food supply and urgent nutritional support involving nutrient-rich-food items to the target groups