Assessing Pre-school Teachers Knowledge and Utilisation of Observational Assessment Tools in Preschool: Implication for Higher Education

Abstract

The assessment of pre-school children‘s performance has become a central focus of efforts to
reform education as it is observed that teachers‘ assessment practices focused mainly on x
children‘s cognitive domain making use of standardised instruments. The study assessed preschool teachers‘ knowledge and utilisation of observational assessment tools in pre-school and 
their implication for higher education. The research design for this study was descriptive survey 
design with a total of 80 pre-school teachers and 50 lecturers of higher education as the 
population of the study. Three research questions were answered. The data collected was 
analysed using mean and standard deviation analysis. The result showed that pre-school
teacher level of knowledge of observational assessment tools was moderate ( x =12.05; SD = 
3.01), the level of pre-school teachers utilisation of observational tools were high
( =60.60; SD = 6.53) while lecturers‘ utilisation of observational tool was high (=40.52;
SD = 10.16). Based on the results of findings from the study it is recommended that lecturers 
teaching the pre-school teachers should desist from lecturing them instead of teach-ing them 
and also encourage them to utilise Observational Assessment tools instead of the stringent 
conventional cognitive assessment methods. Government should enact policies that will not be 
in a variance with global views. Pre-school teachers should also ensure that they record all 
observations and activities that take place during the Childrens‘ stay at school by making use of 
available Observational Assessment tools such as the Anecdotal record.