The Effects of Formative Assessment on Pupils' Achievement in Civic Education in Lower Basic Education in Gombe, Gombe State, Nigeria

Abstract

The paper investigated the effects of formative assessment on pupils’ achievement in civic education in Lower Basic Education in Gombe. The study adopted a quasi-experimental research design specifically, the pre-test post-test non-equivalent control group design. The population of the study comprised all the 37 public primary schools in Gombe. Two schools were randomly selected which had 91 pupils with 46 in experimental group and 45 in the control group who were used with as intact classes. Public primary schools were used because they record more pupils’ low achievement and share common characteristics in terms of provision of material and human resources. The instrument for data collection was a Civic Education Achievement Test (CEAT) which consisted of two sections A and B. Section A dealt on bio data of the pupils while section B contained 20 four-option multiple choice items in Civic Education contents. The CEAT was developed using table of specifications and was further subjected to scrutiny of three experts, one in Civic Education and two from Research, Measurement and Evaluation (RME) Unit in the Department of Educational Foundations, University of Jos. The experts were to judge the items’ comprehensiveness, wording appropriateness, adequacy, precision and clarity. Their corrections and suggestions guided the production of final copy of the CEAT. The experimental group was taught civic education using formative assessment technique while the control group was taught using discussion method. A test-retest reliability coefficient of 0.82 was obtained using PPMC. Four research questions were raised and three hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. Mean, standard deviation and graph were used in answering the research questions while t-test for independent samples was used in testing the hypotheses. The findings of the study revealed that pupils’ pre-test civic education mean scores were low but the experimental group recorded higher mean scores after exposure to formative assessment. The t-test analysis indicated that there was a statistically significant difference between posttest means of the experimental and control groups. Gender did not affect the posttest civic education mean scores of the experimental group. The study recommended that the Gombe SUBEB should organize conferences, seminars and workshops for teachers and design curriculum on formative and other innovative assessment techniques.

Keywords: Civic Education, Formative Assessment, Lower Basic Education