Determinants of Assessment Method used by Teachers in Assessing Learners in Public Early Childhood Development and Education Centers in Kenya

Dr. Esther Chepkorir Bitok
Kisii University, Kenya
Email: estherbitok@kisiiuniversity.ac.ke/estherbitok2006@gmail.com

Received July 5, 2020; Revised July 16, 2020; Accepted July 17, 2020

Abstract: The absence of credible assessment approaches of learning outcomes in public early childhood education is one of the major problems affecting the performance of children at early stages of education. The objective of the study was to establish the assessment of children in public early childhood education centers in Kenya, with a particular focus on
teachers’ utilization of the various assessment methods during assessment of the learners and the frequency of assessment. The study was guided by Brookhart (1997) theory of classroom assessment. The study targeted 2330 ECDE teachers in the 775 public ECDE centers in Uasin-Gishu County. Based on data collected using self administered questionnaires from 341 Early Child Development Education (ECDE) teachers, it was found that majority of the teachers did the assessment of learners on daily and weekly basis. Further the study indicated that the common assessment methods used were: learning stories, annotated and unannotated copies, observations, checklist, anecdotal records, early childhood examples, screening, work samples and individualized educational plans. In addition the teachers conduct these assessments with little focus on identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the learners which could be some of the reasons for poor performance of most of the learners. Therefore the study concludes that an effective classroom assessment and evaluation calls on teachers to become agents of change in their classrooms actively using the results of assessment to modify and improve the learning
environments they create.