Worldwide, governments and other interested parties in education advocate
quality education as well as education for all. This implies that teaching cannot
merely be seen as the teaching of subject content and the mastering of
knowledge on a cognitive level. Other aspects, such as skills, values, attitudes,
the diversity of learners, differentiation and inclusive teaching methods are also
being emphasised. This can be seen in the changes that occurred in the South
African education system during the last eleven years. The above mentioned
implies that teachers need to apply inclusive teaching methods, which includes
adaptive assessment.
This research is a descriptive qualitative and quantitative study with the aim to
determine to what extent adaptive and alternative methods of assessment are
being used by teachers to accommodate learners with barriers to learning and
development. The influences on, shortcomings and necessity of adaptive and
alternative assessment methods, have also been investigated. In order to
achieve the goal of the study, a literature overview and empirical research have
been conducted.
The literature overview focuses on assessment in an outcomes based/inclusive
context. The purpose of the literature is twofold: 1) to provide the necessary
background knowledge regarding the necessity of the use of adaptive and
alternative assessment methods; and 2) to give suggested guidelines to teachers
in the implementation of adaptive assessment methods in order to accommodate
learners with barriers to learning and development. In order to successfully
implement these methods of assessment, it is essential that teachers have
knowledge of outcomes based assessment, multilevel teaching, barriers to
learning and development and inclusive teaching methods, which includes
adaptive assessment. The empirical research has been conducted by means of two sets of
questionnaires. One set of questionnaires was given to selected primary schools
in the Motheo district, while the other set of questionnaires was completed by the
district-based support team of the Motheo district.
The findings of the empirical research show that teachers and district officials do
not have the necessary knowledge and understanding regarding the relevant
policy documents to implement inclusive teaching methods successfully. A
significant number of the teachers and district officials also did not receive any
training in inclusive teaching methods. The support teams that are supposed to
be in place according to White Paper 6 do not function as desired. Although the
respondents indicated that adaptive and alternative methods of assessment are
being used in schools, it has been clear from the research that the respondents
donât really know what these types of assessment methods entails and that they
are not aware of the different types of alternative and adaptive assessment
methods.
The study also revealed that teachers and district officials require essential and
applicable training in order to implement inclusive teaching methods, including
adaptive and alternative assessment methods, in schools.
The conclusion was reached that alternative and adaptive methods of
assessment are not effectively being used in schools to accommodate learners
with barriers to learning and development.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-09232008-143247 |
| Date | 23 September 2008 |
| Creators | Mol, Anna Martha |
| Contributors | Dr GS Kotzé, Dr BF Huysamer |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-09232008-143247/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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