Physics Teachers’ Views and Practices on the Assessment of Students’ Practical Work Skills

Nicholas Zezekwa,Nkopodi Nkopodi

doi:10.29333/ejmste/8289

Abstract

Practical work must be assessed in a way that will promote the development of key skills necessary for destinations beyond the physics school laboratory. This paper reports on a study which sought to find out teachers’ views and practices on the assessment of Advanced Level (‘A’ level) physics students’ practical work skills. Individual interviews and focus group discussions were conducted to get physics teachers’ views and practices on practical work skills assessment. The views of physics teachers were that the current method of practical work assessment used by the Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (Zimsec) is not efficient in encouraging students to develop a variety of practical work skills as students concentrated on mastering presentation and analysis skills at the expense of other crucial practical work skills like equipment manipulation, observational, planning and designing. The study recommends that alternative methods of practical work assessment that integrates both direct assessment of practical work skills (DAPS) and indirect assessment of practical work skills (IAPS) should be used to ensure valid and reliable assessment of practical work skills of ‘A’ level physics students.

Highlights

In Zimbabwe, students who pursue a two year advanced level (‘A’-Level) physics curriculum are expected to write a two and half hour practical work examination at the end of the study in addition to a similar examination on theory which takes approximately four hours
The views of physics teachers were that the current method of practical work assessment used by the Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (Zimsec) is not efficient in encouraging students to develop a variety of practical work skills as students concentrated on mastering presentation and analysis skills at the expense of other crucial practical work skills like equipment manipulation, observational, planning and designing
The second aspect of the presentation and analysis is on the views of teachers on the relevance of the current practical work assessment methods in developing practical work skills of ‘A’ level physics students

Summary

Introduction

In Zimbabwe, students who pursue a two year advanced level (‘A’-Level) physics curriculum are expected to write a two and half hour practical work examination at the end of the study in addition to a similar examination on theory which takes approximately four hours. The physics teacher normally will be interested in marking the submitted final report without much to do with the processes of doing the practical work activities It is against this background that this study would like to find out teachers’ perceptions on such a system in developing other practical work skills of ‘A’ level physics students apart from presentation skills.

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion