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
