Formative assessment in accounting : exploring teachers' understanding and practices.
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Date
2012
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Abstract
This study notes the relationship between changing conceptions and focus of Accounting as a
discipline and its influence on the changed South African school education curriculum. The
study probes whether these above conceptual and curricular changes influence teachers’
understandings of their daily practices as Accounting teachers or not, especially with regard to
formative assessment and the selected pedagogy of their classrooms. In particular, the study was
interested in exploring the practices of rural teachers, a relatively under-explored area of South
African educational research.
The study utilised a case study design focusing on one rural school in Umgungundlovu District
in KwaZulu-Natal. This qualitative, interpretive inquiry was characterised by multiple data
collection methods. Three Accounting teachers who were teaching Accounting in the further
education and training band were purposively selected at the school, based on their experience
and expertise in Accounting. Data were collected from interviews, lesson observations and
document analysis to respond to the key research questions of the study. Field-notes were used to
elaborate further on the data produced from interviews and lesson observations. The critical
research questions explore teachers’ understandings of formative assessment and their use of it in
their classroom, attempting to explain why they understand and apply formative assessment in
the way that they do with respect to Accounting teaching in their specific contexts.
The study revealed that teachers ostensibly seemed to know about the changes in the official
curriculum expectations of the new educational policy. However, these shifts in understanding
were relatively superficial and procedural; hence the teachers were not able to translate them into
any deep cognitive level in their teaching practice. Their changes in practices were also marginal
and limited with respect to the nature of the reconceptualisation of Accounting as a discipline.
This was reflected in simple operational level of implementation of the specified curriculum
requirements. Their practices placed their learners and their backgrounds as central to their
selected teaching choices, instead of the nature of their rural schooling context.
Findings of this study revealed that the over-specification of the formal curriculum, teachers’
under-developed understandings of the discipline and the new curriculum and their
interpretation of contextual pedagogical responsiveness appear to be possible impediments to
teachers’ practices. In an attempt to cope with these challenges teachers devised their strategies
to sustain their practices. What emerged from the study is a kind of ‘communal pedagogy’
which teachers developed through their practices in a rural context. Although these practices are
not regarded as of a qualitatively sophisticated progressive kind of pedagogy, teachers see
contextually appropriate value in them.
The study emphasises the need to look beyond the overt practices of rural school teachers, and
instead to focus on what informs these practices. While the study is not celebratory of the
communal pedagogy, it does attempt to shift the thinking about these practices by focusing on
understanding what they are trying to respond to. The study therefore highlights the need to
understand teachers’ own explanations of their practices, rather than condemning them.
The study suggests that the teaching practices within rurality should not be judged and
pathologised because of their specificities of responsiveness to highly contextualised and more
likely appropriate factors.
Description
Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.
Keywords
Accounting teachers--KwaZulu-Natal., Accounting--Study and teaching (Secondary)--KwaZulu-Natal., Curriculum-based assessment--KwaZulu-Natal., Theses--Education.