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Home > Al-Idah > Volume 37 Issue 1 of Al-Idah

Correlation Between Internal and External Assessment at University Level: Acase Study of I. E. R, University of Peshawar |
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Al-Idah

Introduction:

In our educational and academic society the competitive environment is raised up to the mark and the trends are continued to be so. Assessment or evaluation in educational institution is made to give the right place to the right person. If the Assessment is just, valid and reliable, the purpose will be served. And if it is otherwise, the purpose cannot be served. There are three factors involved in an academic process i.e. objectives, methodology and then the assessment (Tang, Kim et al, 1999).

We may say that Assessment may have different effects at different time or the stage of the course. When the assessment is made in the start of a class or academic year, it may be used for orientation purposes. If it is made in the middle of the course, it may be used for the teacher’s own assessment of methodology or for the purpose of assessing the understanding level of the students about the subject matter and when the assessment is made at the end of the session or of the course, it might have the long- lasting effects and sometimes-everlasting effects regarding the future of the students.

It is a known fact that the students are assessed externally less frequently than they are assessed internally. But the impact of the external assessment is farther more than the internal assessments. The external assessment not only assesses the students but also indicate the quality of the teaching learning process of an institution.

As the external assessment has a greater authority and effects, so sometimes the teachers of an institution, address the problem in an undesirable manner as the Nolen, Haladyna and Haas (1992) referred to that many teachers were found involved in some undesirable and unethical ways of assessments, just to show good results to overcome the pressure of the demands of producing good results (Scott, Alison, Robert D. 2000).

So this pressure is sometimes managed by the teachers in a way that they unconsciously give more importance to meet the requirements of tests than real learning. And even it may lead to use of unfair means such as cheating etc (Shepard, 2003).

Research made in the testing reveals that scoring more marks does not mean more learning, but it means more practice and familiarity with the tests. (Wynne Harlen, 2004)

The level of fear and anxiety varies from gender to gender as all the studies made on test anxiety found lower level of anxiety and fear in boys than girls. (Wynne Harlen,2004)

Although there might be negative impacts of testing on students but they can be minimized by the positive behaviors and attitudes of the teachers. There are assumptions about teachers that the assessments made by teachers are not reliable and are based on personal likes and dislikes (Wynne Harlen, 2004).

In this regard in Institute of Education and Research (I.E.R) University of Peshawar, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan, try to overcome the problem of assessment by making the assessment a two fold i.e. the internal assessment and the External assessment in the final exams. Here the Internal assessment is made by the teachers, who have been teaching the students for the whole session. As far as the internal assessment is concerned, it is the discretion of the teacher that how he wants to assess his or her students. The teacher may take:

  • Written test,
  • Assignments can be given to the students.
  • The students might be asked to present a presentation on a given topic.
  • Or it can be a combination of any of the aforementioned criterion.

External assessment is made by the examiners from outside the University, belonging to the other Universities. Such examiners are unknown to the students and the students are alien to them. And it is kept confidential. And to keep the confidentiality in place, the students are not allowed to write their names on the papers, but the Roll Number is allotted to the students. Due to this practice of confidentiality, the chances of any kind of biases or gender discrimination usually come to zero percent. The marks’ allocation for the Internal and External assessment is 25% and 75% respectively. It means that 25 % are allocated to the internal assessment whereas 75 % marks are allocated to the External assessment. Moreover this practice also addresses the chance of any bias on the part of teachers who have been teaching to the students and might influence the scores of the students on the basis of personal likes and dislikes.

Statement of the problem:

Assessments in the final examination may play a decisive role regarding the future of the students so assessed. The matter being so much sensitive was taken up by the researchers to make a case study of the current practices of assessments that is being practiced at University of Peshawar. So the problem can be stated as “Correlation between Internal and External Assessment at University Level: A case Study of IER. University of Peshawar, Pakistan”

Hypotheses:

After reviewing the related literature the following hypotheses were developed.

Ho. There is no relationship in the Internal and External Assessment in the M. Ed. Examination at University of Peshawar.

Ha: There is a positive relationship between the Internal and External Assessment.

The Alpha level for the present study is .01

Methodology:

The population for the study was all the students of Master of Education (M.Ed.) of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The data of the results of the examination was obtained from the examination section of University of Peshawar.

Sample:

All 200 students of M.Ed students appeared in the Annual Exams from University of Peshawar and its affiliated Institutes (which cover almost 70 percent of the province) were taken as a convenient sample.

Tools:

Marks of both Internal and External assessment of M.Ed. examination

Analysis between the Internal and External Assessment

The data was analyzed through SPSS

Results and Discussion

To get a detailed result the data was tested and analyzed through the SPSS software. As there were two types of subjects, the compulsory and the optional subjects. Therefore the results that came according to the SPSS were presented in the following two tables.

Correlation between Internal and External Assessment of compulsory subjects of M.Ed

Table 1

Subject Correlation Co-efficient
Curriculum Development 0.30**
Measurement & Evaluation 0.40**
Advanced Educational Psychology 0.40**
Educational Management & Supervision 0.6**
Philosophy of Education. 0.25**
Research Techniques 0.23**
Computer Education 0.73**
    • . Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
 

Correlation co-efficient between 0.4 - 0.7 highly correlated, 0.3 moderate and 0.2 means very low correlated.

The above table shows that in the subjects of Philosophy of education and Research techniques the correlation is low whereas in the subject of curriculum development it is moderate. As far as the other subjects are concerned Measurement and evaluation, Advanced Educational Psychology, educational Management and Supervision is concerned, they are highly correlated by having the score of 0.4 to 0.7.

The table-1 also revealed that the correlation value of all the compulsory subjects in the internal and external assessment are greater than 0.01 therefore we reject the null hypothesis which states that there is no correlation between internal and external assessment. As a result of the above findings we accept the alternate hypothesis of having a correlation between the internal and external assessment in all the subjects of M.Ed being taught at university of Peshawar.

Correlation between Internal and External Assessment of optional subjects of M.Ed

Table 2

Subject Correlation co-efficient
Guidance & Counseling 0.5**
Teaching of English (special subject) 0.4**
Teaching of Science (special subject) 0.3**
    • . Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

The table of optional subjects reflects that the Teaching of Science has moderate correlation with the scores of 0.3. While the other two subjects that are Guidance & Counseling and the Teaching of English are highly correlated. Here no subject has a low correlation. The above table revealed that the correlation value of all the optional subjects in the internal and external assessment are greater than 0.01 therefore we reject the null hypothesis which states that there is no correlation between internal and external assessment. As a result of the above findings we accept the alternate hypothesis of having a correlation between the internal and external assessment in all the subjects of M.Ed being taught at university of Peshawar.

Conclusion:

After analysis of the data it was found that there is a significant correlation between internal and external assessment in the M.Ed Examination Annual 2010 of University of Peshawar in all the ten subjects. The findings of the present study do not confirm the hypothesis that there is no relationship between the Internal and External Assessment in M.Ed Examination and consequently the alternative hypothesis that there is a positive relationship in the Internal and External assessment in M.Ed. Examination is accepted.

The study focused on the assessment level and their correlation between external and internal assessment of the students of University of Peshawar. The findings are very attractive and consequently it presents and gives some ideal picture of the assessments but to be more objective the researchers recommend the following recommendation as a result of the study conducted.

Recommendation:

Although there is a significant correlation found in the Internal and External assessments of the year, but the researchers recommend a need of a further and continuous research and follow up of the examination. As it can be an exceptional case or there might be a chance of some co-incidence.

References:

  1. Harlen, W. (2004, November 24). Rethinking The Teacher's Role in assesment. Education-Line. Retrieved February 23, 2012, from www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00003775.htm
  2. Nolen, S. B., Haladyna, T. M., & Haas, N. S. (1992). Uses and Abuses of Achievement Test Scores. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 11(2), 9-15. Retrieved April 27, 2012, from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ doi/10.1111/j.1745-3992.1992.tb00234.x/abstract
  3. Paris, S. (2000). Trojan horse in the schoolyard: The hidden threats in high-stakes testing. Issues in Education, 6(1), 1-16.
  4. Paris, S. G., Paris, A. H., & Carpenter, R. D. (n.d.). Internal and External Assessments. CIERA: the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement. Retrieved February 23, 2012, from http://www.ciera.org/ library/reports/inquiry-3/3-013/3-013.html
  5. Shepard, L. A. (2003). Reconsidering Large-Scale Assesment to Heighten Its Relevance to Learning. National Science Teachers Association. Retrieved February 23, 2012,fromwww.colorado.edu/education/faculty/lorrieshepard/PDF/Reconsidering%20Large-Scale%20Assessment.pdf
  6. Smith, M. L. (1991). Put to the Test:The Effects of External Testing on Teacher. Educational Researcher, 20(5), 8-11. Retrieved February 23, 2012, from http://edr.sagepub.com/content/20/5/8.abstract
  7. TANG., Catherine, K. C., LAI., Patrick, K. T., Arthur, D., & Leung, S. (n.d.). HKIEd Research Repository: How do students prepare for traditional and portfolio assessment in a problem-based learning curriculum?. HKIEd LibraryRetrieved March 7, 2012, from http:/ /repository.ied.edu.hk/ dspace/handle/2260.2/474

 

 

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