The Nature of Classroom Assessment in Ethiopian Public Secondary Schools: Subject Teachers’ Views

This study examined the use of assessment techniques by secondary school teachers in Ethiopia. Little has been known about the classroom assessment strategies teachers use to assess their students in Ethiopian Secondary School contexts [1,2]. All participants (N=423, average teacher experience =14 years) where teachers and they all completed a self-developed questionnaire with 15 items, and of these 8 teachers took part in a face-to-face interview. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Chi-square, confirmed that there were three types of assessment techniques: assessment OF learning, assessment FOR learning, assessment AS learning. Most of the teachers reported that assessment OF learning and assessment FOR learning to be the most common and dominant forms of assessments across language, sciences and social sciences. However, only the physical education teachers used assessment AS learning to assess their students. Teachers also identified class size, low student motivation, lack of student knowledge around content area, school environment, and time assigned for a lesson, and teaching and learning facilities, to be barriers for fully implementing and exploring the various assessment techniques. Implications for the study are discussed.