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Unit 22 : Continuous Assessment

Another advantage of continuous assessment is that it places teachers at the centre of all Notes
performance-assessment activities. It encourages more teacher participation in the overall
assessment or grading of his/her learners. Teachers must be given opportunities to select and
review assessments so that they become involved and knowledgeable in the process. Through
this approach, teachers would be able to integrate assessment and assessment results into
instructional practice. Teachers will be expected to incorporate assessment into the larger learning
framework and possibly to provide evidence regarding how assessment information is used to
inform and guide instruction for individual learners. According to Lewis (1997), with continuous
assessment teachers must embed the assessment in their instructions, score the assessments and
discuss standards for good learners’ work with colleagues, parents and learners.
One of the important aspects of continuous assessment is the availability of valid and reliable
tests which could be used in all schools. There is a need to construct these tests following established
procedures and practices. To make the results comparable across all the schools, teachers need to
be equipped with skills of test construction and administration. This could be done through
teacher training institutions so that teachers are equipped with such skills as part of their training
and certification.
Apart from the skills of test construction measuring cognitive aspects of learning, teachers should
also be able to measure the learners’ affective attributes such as attitudes, motives, interests,
values and other personality characteristics. Such characteristics could be as important as others
associated with intelligence. They could assist the teachers and administrators in understanding
the learners better, both in the process of education and in the practical affairs of everyday life.
They could help us answer questions such as why learners perceived to have high academic
abilities do not do well at school. They also provide clues about the interest patterns of learners
which could be used in their placement into schools of higher learning and for employment
purposes. It is believed that anti-social behaviours such as truancy, lying, cheating, stealing and
poor attitude to work could be corrected by providing affective education in schools.

For successful implementation of the continuous assessment approach, teachers need to give
most tests, which means more marking. They need to observe the learners more keenly to assess
their affective outcomes, and there will be more records to be kept on the learners. All these
could mean more work to the teacher, more demand on his or her time and more responsibility
on him or her. This means they must be professionally and attitudinally prepared for operating
the system. If the teacher is not adequately prepared for operating the system, it may lead to a
tendency to merely ‘cook up’ scores in the name of continuous assessment. Thus, teachers should
be encouraged to form favourable attitudes toward the practice. They should be made aware of
the requirements of the system, its importance and how to implement it.
Another problem with continuous assessment is the issue of record keeping. Learners’ records
have to be adequately and meticulously kept over a long period of time. They should be properly
stored and easily retrievable. A related issue is that of collation. Scores may have to be combined
from different sources using various weights. Teachers will need basic arithmetical operations of
addition and multiplication;

What is Continuous assessment process ?

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