A Study of Teachers’ Assessment of Children’s Creative Art Works in Some Primary Schools in Kaduna State
Chapter One
The Objective of the Study
The major objective of the study was to find out how teachers assess children’s work in creative art.
Specific objectives of this study are as follows:
- To understand or know how teachers assess children’s work in creative art subject.
- The study will enable us to assess children’s creative ability in art by
- To compare the creative ability of children in public and private schools in creative artand
- To suggest or propose a uniform method for assessing children’s work in creative art, for teachers in the primary.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction:
In this literature review, the researcher discuses the following sub-themes as they relate to the main theme of this study. They are:
- Concept of assessment
- Types of assessment
- The assessment process
- What to assess in children
- Purpose of assessment
- Problems associated with assessment/evaluation of art activities
- Child art
- Methods of assessing children’s art process and product
- Qualities of good assessment
- Summary/Conclusion
Concept of Assessment:
The term ‘assessment’ in education has been defined by many authors in various forms depending on their individual perception and experiences. Farrant (1980), Aminu (1990) and Edward and Collison (1996) see assessment as a form of judgment or decision-making by teachers in recording their pupils’ performances in the classroom. Also, Satterly, (1981) explains that educational assessment is an omnibus term which includes all the processes and products which describe the nature and extent of children’s learning, its degree of correspondence with the aims and objectives of teaching and its relationship with the environments which are designed to facilitate learning. He further argues that assessment in education yields typical results, which he listed as:
- The matching of a child’s characteristics to an educational alternative such as a particular teaching method ormaterials,
- A decision to allow or encourage a child to tackle particular topic having identifiable pre-requisites;
- A decision to place him or her in a group of similarlearners;
- The selection of one another’s educational environment such as type of school or in the case of assessment of a young offender, (sic), placement in a community home which offers a regime or treatment had to be suitable for youngsters of specified
Okpala et al (1993) and Aliyu (1993) have argued that people have often misconceived the meaning of evaluation, measurement, assessment and evaluation. These terms are often used inter-changeable by practioners or person interested in education. They also believe that measurement is a process of assigning numerals to objects, qualities or events. In other words, measurement to them gives a qualitative meaning to quantity whereas; assessment is a broader concept than measurement. However, Ighedo (1997) has a contrary view to that of Okpala and others. He sees assessment and evaluation as key elements, which are easily identified in organized human activities whether socials, cultural, religious, political, financial or any other. He goes on to say that performance evaluation of such activities are carried out either consciously or unconsciously. Kitson and Merry (1997) are of the opinion that assessment requires either measurement or both. That is to say that one could use any of the two. Both terms are equally useful in conducting research.
James (1988) however contends that assessment tends to be used for the collection of information about students’ learning and inferences that are drawn from it in terms of aptitudes, abilities and achievements. Assessment in education could therefore mean the process of collecting information designed by teachers in knowing the different behaviours of their pupils and learning abilities in the things they have been taught in the classroom. On the other hand, it could be described as a process of getting feedback from the learner in the classroom through asking some questions, observation, test and examinations to know the strength or weakness of any child for proper assistance by the teacher. Assessment however, exists in different forms as follows:
Types of Assessment
Edwards and Collison (1996), Fisher (1996) suggest two types of assessment in education: (a) Summative and (b) Formative assessment.
Summative Assessment:
This type of assessment has to do with the final assessment of a student’s performance in the classroom. This type of assessment usually affects the child’s performance in whatever form of assignment or test that is given to a child, so as to assess his performance in the nature of work given by the teacher.
Formative Assessment:
This type of assessment guides the teacher on which decision to take about a pupils next learning experience. In making formative judgment therefore, teachers are simply guiding learners towards competent performance in various activities or learning experience that can take place in the classroom. Edward and Collison (1996) finally point out that teachers’ formative method of assessing students is usually judgments that are made in order to strengthen and support student’s performance.
Kitson and Merry (1997) citing Thomas (1990) believe that there are other methods used in assessing children’s performance at the primary school. These include:
- Informal Assessment
- Formal Assessment
- Summary Assessment
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction:
Research design deals with the methodological approach which the researcher plans to use in achieving his stated objective of a study (Johnson 1977; Afolabi (1993). This plan includes: how the population of the study will be chosen; the methods or procedure to be used, techniques of data collection and analysis to be carried out. In addition, they concluded by saying that research design is a deliberate effort to collect data for new information. This chapter discusses the research procedures for the study. These include: distribution of schools within Kaduna metropolis; selection of the subjects of the study; the instruments; pilot study; as well as the validity and reliability of the instruments.
Research Procedure:
The research procedure used, is case study research method. This is so because the study attempts to derive the mode of assessment used by primary school art teachers as well as test rating scale for assessing pupils’ art works within Kaduna metropolis. The procedure is used because it allows a researcher to measure a large number of variables and their inter relations at the same time. Besides, it also enables a researcher to study other variables as stated in the background of the study.
Selection of Subjects:
The subjects for this study were drawn from twenty primary schools from Kaduna North Local Government Area and Kadnua South Local Government Area which are areas where art is actively taught within Kaduna metropolis. 10 of these schools were from public schools and another 10 from private institutions. A total of 350 pupils were randomly selected from a total population of 1,262,184 male and 166 female. 262 teachers, 82 male and 180 female were drawn out from a population of 1,257. Ten primary schools ere randomly selected from each of these local Government Areas. Five from public primary schools and the other five from private schools, to give room for comparability of results in the study.
Other considerations include:
- Schools were selected according to the years when they were
- Schools were creative art activities have been taught for not less than five years.
- Sampling of respondents was based on, simple random sampling of children who were present in the class at the time of conducting the
- All the schools sampled were within Kaduna metropolis to give room for easy accessibility thus: 3 from Kawo District, 4 from Doka District, 3 from Gabasawa District, 5 from Tudun Wada District and 5 from Makera District.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
Introduction:
This study sought to measure the pattern of teachers’ assessment on children’s creative artwork in some selected primary schools within Kaduna metropolis. It also aimed at comparing children’s creative abilities in artwork and amongst male and their female counterparts in some schools used for this study.
The instruments used for this study were: interview schedule and observational guide, a drawing test a (house) was administered on the subjects. While the statistical methods used included – t-test, correlation coefficient, test of significance and percentages.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
This study sought to carry out teachers’ assessment of children creative artwork; in some selected primary schools in Kaduna metropolis. Early in this study, the researcher identified some problems encountered by art teachers in assessing children’s at works. Some of these problems include: lack of acceptable criteria for assessment of art works and lack of understanding of the role and purpose of assessment among others. The study also pointed out that inspite of these shortcomings the Federal Government is introducing measures to encourage the teaching of art as in the NPE (1981). The need for continuous assessment through the use of acceptable criteria has been emphasized.
The researcher used multiple instruments:- Interview schedule, observational guide and questionnaires while the statistical measurements used were: t-test, frequency counts (%) and Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient.
Summary:
The summary of the research findings could be highlighted thus:
- There is a significant relationship among the various teacher assessments of pupils.
- Teachers will be more competent in the classroom when they have good knowledge of their
- Male pupils performed significantly better than
- Children in private schools performed significantly better than those from public
- No one single method can be considered as the most effective in art
- The use of instructional materials in the classroom can positively affect children’s learning ability in creative art
- Children learn better in a free and conducive learning environment.
- Workshops and seminars in creative arts have not been conducted in the schools to update the knowledge of art teachers in the
- Art periods on the school time tables are sometimes used for other
- Each school teacher has its own method of assessing children’s work in creative
- Assessing children’s work in creative art can be
- Children in the private primary schools performed better in creative art lesson than their counterparts in the public primary
- Both male and female pupils performed equally well in creative art
- There is significant relationship among the various methods of rating or assessing children’s work in creative
Conclusion:
The findings as well as interview and observations showed that most classes in the public primary schools are either over-populated or poorly ventilated for effective learning to take place. The sitting arrangement in most of the primary schools visited is not also quite suitable for the pupils to sit attentively in the classroom. Art teachers do not seem to have enough interest in the subject. That is why art lessons on the timetable are sometimes replaced by other subjects in the school. One is therefore not surprised by the inability of children in the public schools to perform better than their counterparts in private schools.
Other factors that might have contributed to poor performance in the creative art test could be lack of teaching materials and encouragement on the part of the school administrators or proprietors.
It was again found that reports and suggestions offered to the school administrators after any workshop conducted in the primary schools were not often put to use by them in order to enhance the creative ability of their teachers in the school. This has adversely affected the teachers’ interest in the subject.
On the other hand, pupils in the private schools performed much better than their counterparts in the public primary schools because most attention is given to the teaching of creative art lessons by school proprietors and proprietresses. It is in the private schools that one saw some of the children’s art works displayed on the walls for assessment, with beautiful sitting arrangement for the pupils. Children in each class were not over populated as in the case of the public schools.
In the light of the above therefore, it is important to stress that with proper attention paid to the primary schools by the government and school administrators, there will be a significant improvement in the teaching of the subject in the schools and children’s interest in the subject will be stimulated.
The need to provide teachers with a standard method of assessing children’s works in creative art should not be overemphasized if a uniform method for evaluating children’s creative ability in art works has to maintained at the primary level.
Recommendation from the study:
Based on the findings of this research, the interviews and observations made, the following recommendation are hereby made:
- More competent teachers should be employed to teach creative arts at the primary
- Art teachers should be allowed to go for further training so as to improve on their teaching
- Workshops should be organized for non-art teachers in primary schools from time to time make them better art
- Both school adminstrators and pupils’ parents or guardians should provide the children with art
- The learning environment should be made conducive for the
- Creative art lesson should always be reflected on the school
- Standard methods of assessing children’s work should be put in place for uniformity and
- If possible, art studios should be provided in
- Children must be compelled to come to school with art
- Pupil-teacher relationship should always be checked so as not to have a negative effect on the children’s
- It is advisable for teachers to make themselves available in the class during art lessons.
- Children need some degree of freedom in the classroom to learn
- Condemnation of children’s work by teachers should be discouraged as much as
- Children should be motivated towards art
- Children in the public schools should be encouraged towards creative arts through the provision of good learning environment and enough learning materials.
- Children should sometimes be allowed to assess their performance in creative art by themselves. This can encourage teamwork among them. This can also help them to share their creative ideas in
Implication for further study:
In this study, it must have been observed that only a small sample of schools within Kaduna metropolis was used by the researcher. The result presented for this study would have probably been quite different from the one obtained if a larger sample of schools were used in the study.
In the light of this therefore, the researcher would want to suggest that a similar study be conducted using larger samples of primary schools within Kaduna state.
REFERENCES
- Adamu, D. S. (1998) An Evaluation of Students’ Performance in Grade II/WASC Examination in Art in some selected Teachers Colleges and Secondary Schools in Gongola State. B . A. Art Education A.B.U Zaria (unpublished)
- Adenyanju G.A. (1996) Creativity: Learning and Learning Styles. Printed by Isola and Sons, Sabon Garim Zaria – Nigeria. Pp. 84, 85.
- Adjai Robinson (1980) Principles and Practice of Teaching. Printed by George Allen and Unwin Publ. Ltd . in Great Britain p.96.
- Afolabi, M. (1993) Introduction to Research Method for Writing Proposals, Project and Thesis Alpha Publishers, Zaria.
- Ajayi, Frank (1985) Handbook in Art Methodology: Printed by Oyoyo Press, Ipetu Ijesa, Nigeria, Pp. 13, 15, 17.
- Aliyu Abubakar (1993) Journal of Education. Vol. 1 No. 1. pp. 25 – 26. Amabile, T. (1983) The Social Psychology of Creativity N. Y. springer – Verlag.
- Aminu, Ali Maiwada (1990) The State of Continous Assessment in Secondary School in
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