Perceptions of Students on the Fairness of Formative and Summative Assessments in Tanzanian Universities

Abstract

This study was conducted to assess the perception of university students on the fairness of formative and summative assessments conducted in Tanzanian universities. The study was guided by two specific objectives which aimed at finding out the perceptions of students on fairness of formative and summative assessments and identifying the sources of errors in assessment. The researcher adopted a cross sectional design which enabled them collect data from study respondents at one time. Third year students from universities offering teacher education in Tanzania were targeted whereby stratified sampling technique was used to obtain the study sample which consisted of 336 students selected from four universities. Questionnaires with open and closed ended questions were used to collect data and the collected data were analyzed descriptively in frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations and the hypothesis were tested using independent sample t-test and one-way ANOVA. The study found students not to be well satisfied with the general assessment procedure; both formative and summative assessments were found to have the same level of fairness which was satisfactory. Moreover, lecturer, tools, and condition related factors were found to contribute to unfairness at the same basis. Lecturers in public universities were found to be favoring their students more than the ones in private universities. The study recommended universities to design and implement appropriate procedures so as to improve fairness in assessments.