EVALUATION OF THE TEACHING –LEARNING PROCESS

Evaluation covers much more than giving of tests or exams in order to assign grades to students.
It is both for the teacher and students.

Evaluation involves the use of instruments such as questionnaires, interviews, direct observation,
analysis of the products made by students and records made for their purposes.

Evaluation is a continuous process, it does not only take place during classes, class set aside for
giving tests and exams but also but also continuing to take place during the learning process. This
is intended to find out how far students have learnt as a consequence of teaching.

BROAD CLASSIFICATOIN OF CLASSROOM EVALUATION

1. Summative evaluation
2. Formative evaluation
Summative evaluation is done at the end of a specific period e.g at the end of the term, semester,
end of year, end of a course or programme etc. The results obtained from this form of assessment
are used to judge the students and the teacher in respect to the learning and instructional objectives.

Formative evaluation on the other hand is the type of assessment that is used to assess the
performance of students in the due course of the study. It involves systematic assessment or
evaluation during the course of study in order to improve on the teaching strategies. It describes
the situation on which evidence is used primarily to benefit the students, parents, teachers,
administrators, and curriculum developers.

Importance of Evaluation

1. It helps the teacher to find out whether there is need for remedial classes
2. It helps the teacher to discover the individual differences among learners and act
accordingly
3. It helps the teacher to test his/her the teaching methods
4. It is for accountability purposes for the teacher and administration through records of work
and record of marks
5. It is one of the tools for classroom management
6. It is done for promotional purposes from one class or level to another
 7. It helps to assess the extent of learning by the learners
8. It acts as a basis for carrier guidance to students in selecting courses at higher institutions
of learning and subjects for A level.
9. It helps curriculum developers to amend the curriculum in a way that suits the learner’s
needs and interests and those of society.
10. It helps parents to know and make a follow-up on the performance of their children
11. It helps students to show their worth and improve accordingly.

CRITERIA FOR SETTING A GOOD GEOGRAPHY EXAMINATION

1. Validity: A good test should be valid ie it should measure what it is intended to measure
2. It should be relevant in line with the ability of learner`s age in terms of the phrases used,
content, language etc.
3. Reliability: A good test to should be reliable, it should have the same rating to the
candidate, even if it is examined by different examiners and examined at different times.
4. It should be able to assess the three domains ie cognitive, affective and psychomotor.
5. It should be objective: A test is considered to be objective if the scoring is not based on
the examiners personal judgment or opinion.
6. It should be comprehensive ie it should cover at least all parts of the syllabus or content
covered and questions should be evenly distributed.
7. Practicability: A test is considered to be practical if it can be easily administered and cater
for individual differences and should be easy to interpret.
8. Economical: A good test should be economical in terms of resources and time.

DEVELOPING A TEACHER MADE GEOGRAPY TEST

It is good for a teacher to put into consideration the objectives of the syllabus, content and the type
of test items to be used.

TYPES OF TEST ITEMS

Supply or free test response items

 1. Short answer test items
2. Filling in the blank test items
3. Structured and essay test items.

Choice type items

1. Multiple choice /objective items

2. False or true choice items
3. Matching choice items

SUPPLY OR FREE RESPONSE TEST

Short answer type items

This restricts candidates to what they must do, it requires short answers where students should be
brief and straight forward to the point. It may require just a word or a sentence. Eg What is the
capital city of Uganda? , What are volcanic mountains?

Filling in blank items

This demands Students to complete the blank spaces eg Uganda got her independence on…….?
This is used to test a specific area in the syllabus especially knowledge of data. These questions
don’t normally require reasoning.

Structured type test items

This is where a student is given a guide or format when answering certain questions. Eg write
notes on the following

a) Pastoralism
b) Terracing
c) Compare and contract coffee growing in Brazil and Uganda.

NB Short answer items and completion should not be used as a scape goat.

Essay Test Items

This is where students are given freedom to express themselves. This gives the students chance to
determine the scope of their individual answers. It tests student’s ability to comprehend, recall,
apply, reason etc. Questions starting with words like explain, discuss, account for, examine, assess,
analyze, describe are asked.

Advantages of short answer and completion items

 They are easy to mark

 Cover much of the syllabus
 Not easy for students to spot topics
 Scoring is objective, ie it is not subjective
 It reduces ambiguity in setting the questions
 It enables students to read and internalize facts thus discouraging cram work.

Disadvantages

 Does not help students to express themselves.

 Learner`s reasoning skills may not be developed
 They take a lot of time while designing them
 They are easy to copy by students
 They are costly in terms of finances because they consume a lot of paper where a
teacher has to leave space.
 They are disadvantageous to students if the teacher never completed the syllabus

Advantages of Essay test Items

 The show well how the student is able to organize and present ideas
 Helps to upgrade the learners writing skills
 Test the ability of learners to analyze problems and use it to attain information and use
it to arrive at a conclusion
 Develops the thinking and reasoning capacity of learners
 There is varying degree of correctness, since there is no right or wrong answer.
 Helps learners to have deeper meaning and interrelationships rather than isolated bits
of actual materials.
Disadvantages
 Scoring such tests is very subjective due to lack of definite answers
 Scoring requires a lot of time
  Scoring is influenced by spellings, hand writing, sentence structure etc
 Questions tent to be ambiguous or too obvious eg briefly explain the characteristics of
essay and multiple choice test items.
 They are hard to mark
 These tests are not comprehensive, they usually cover a few topics
 It is not reliable because there is no agreements between the teachers for the marks to be
assigned.

CHOICE TYPE ITEMS/ COMPLETION ITEMS

Multiple choice/ Objective tests
This is where questions are set and alternative answers are presented and students must select the
one that would make the statement correct. Candidates are made to choose the best alternative.
Such tests reduce on subjectivity in marking. E g in which country is Mabira forest found?
A. Uganda
B. Kenya
C. Tanzania

Guidelines for Designing Multiple Choice Items

1. A test item should have a single item to be tested
2. The test item should be in position to discriminate a group of students as low, medium and
high achievers
3. The statement of the test item should be very clear and not very ambiguous.
4. Teacher should make sure that there is only one correct answer.

Parts of Multiple Choice Item

1. The stem
2. Plausible answer/options
The stem of the test contains the statement of the question and the problem. The stem of multiple
choice items can be in different ways;
 Stating the stem in form of a question eg What is soil erosion?
  Stating the stem as an incomplete statement eg Uganda got her independence
in……………….
 Writing the stem as a quotation eg a region is well known for the
following……..except………..
The Plausible answers are options available for students from which they should choose the
correct answer.
Guidelines in writing Plausible Answer
1. Write the answers in such a way that to the students who have not read through the topic
all answers seem to be plausible/correct.
2. Include common misconceptions which an average student can easily interpret or identify
eg when did we get our independence? (a) 1962, (b) 1963, (c) 1862, (d) 1692
3. Don’t provide clues to the right answers.
4. There must be one correct answer. The correct answer is called the key and the wrong
options are called the destructors.

Limitations of Objective Tests

 They fail to test the student`s ability to organize material
 The cannot test how well a thought is expressed
 They encourage guess work
 They are difficult to design
 They are easy to copy
 They don’t encourage development of writing and spelling skills
 The don’t test all types of content eg cannot be used in practical work.

Advantages
 They are comprehensive
 Easy to mark
 Encourage intelligent guessing
 Reduces on subjectivity and inter-examiner variability
 Scoring is not affected by the student`s hand writing and spellings
Matching Item Tests
This involves re-arranging items in columns so that they match. In this type two mis-matched
columns are given, one column for problem statement another column working as options. The
candidate is expected/ required to match the questions and answers given in the two columns

True or False Test Items

They are simply statements which students must judge to find out whether they are true or false.
Eg River Nile originates from Western Uganda, true or false.

Advantages of Matching/ True or False Questions

 Students are able to recognize the relationship that exists between the different concepts ie
questions and answers
 Easy to deign
 Scoring is objective
 Easy to mark

Disadvantages
 Don’t show student`s ability to perceive the meaning or real understanding of the
relationship between items used in the test
 Encourages guess work
 Do not encourage development of writing skills

In conclusion, the teacher will find it necessary to use all types of testing instruments so as to
get a broad picture for formulation of his/her studen1s concepts.