Relationship Between Assessment Formats Used by Mathematics Tutors and Students Learning Approaches

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between the assessment formats used by Colleges of Education Mathematics tutors and students learning approaches among Colleges of Education students in the Western-North Region of Ghana. The study employed a quantitative methodology embedded with a correlation research design. The purposive sampling techniques were used to sample 265 student-teachers in all the three Colleges of Education. The questionnaire collected data on the two research questions and three hypotheses to guide the study. Frequency and percentage, mean and standard deviation were utilized to answer research questions, Chi-square, Independent sample t-test and ANOVA were employed to test the hypotheses. The results showed that among the five assessment formats, four were predominantly used by mathematics tutors in assessing their students. These include; multiple-choice, essay, short-answers and true/false and with this multiple-choice item formats is mostly used among the four. However matching type is not used to assesses their students. The student-teachers used all the learning approaches but the most used learning approach is strategic learning approach. Tutors of the Colleges of Education mostly use multiple-choice item and short- answers whiles the student-teachers use strategic approach when being assessed with those formats. Female students tend to adopt the surface learning approach than their male counterparts. The age of students did not influence the learning approaches adopted by student teachers. The study concluded that mathematics tutors in the three selected Colleges often used multiple-choice test format while student-teachers were more interested in the use of the strategic learning approach due to its multi purpose nature