Online Assessment Practices of Higher Education Instructors: Exploring Ghanaian Teacher Educators Experiences during COVID-19

• In Event: Institutional autonomy and accountability: Moving towards a new lerning landscape

Proposal

Objectives
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has changed the educational landscape due to the abrupt closure of basic, secondary, and tertiary institutions the world witnessed. The situation changed assessment landscape which resulted in several assessment innovations and challenges (Cooper et al., 2021). Most of the studies on emergency remote assessment has been done within the Global North to understand how teachers responded, navigated and engaged in innovative assessment practices. However, little is known on how higher education instructors in low-income countries (including countries in Sub-Saharan Africa -SSA) coped and responded to global emergency remote assessment. Taking up this gap in the SSA context, this study explored the emergency remote assessment practices in higher education in Ghana during COVID-19. This study was guided by the following research question:
Research Question
1. What are the remote assessment experiences of teacher educators in Ghana?
Conceptual Review
Emergency remote assessment
The transition from online learning or remote instruction to emergency remote teaching encapsulates the multiple changes in common approaches to teaching and learning that the COVID-19 epidemic required (Hodges et al., 2020). Including (a) an increase in the frequency of feedback to support and inform students’ learning at home, (b) a change to authentic problem-based learning activities in response to increased concerns about academic dishonesty, and (c) a renewed focus on formative assessment as a key component of supportive learning (Cooper et al., 2022). Moreover, Sharadgah and Sa'di (2020) argued that higher education institutions were not completely equipped to conduct a suitable assessment in a virtual learning environment during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Methods
This study used a qualitative transcendental phenomenological approach. We used purposive criterion sampling to select teachers who participated in the online teaching during COVID-19. Twenty-five teacher educators were selected from 15 teacher training institutions in Ghana. Fifteen of the selected participants were males and 10 were females. This study received ethical clearance from teacher training institutions that were selected for the study. Consent was also sought from teachers before interviewing them. We assured and ensured the confidentiality of participants’ voices on tape recorders. Moustakas’s (1990) four systematic inductive data analysis procedure were followed. This includes (a) horizontalization, (b) clusters of meaning, (c) structural description, and (d) essential, invariant structure (or essence). Significant statements and themes were used to describe remote assessment experiences.
Findings
Based on the outcome of the interviews with teacher educators, three overarching themes with sub-themes emerged: (a) Remote assessment practices of teacher educators (b) remote assessment challenges and (c) lessons learned and future directions.
Remote assessment practices of teacher educators
Dominance of teacher-centred assessment approach
Questioning was the predominant formative assessment strategy that teachers in this study used during online assessment. Most teachers indicated that asking students questions while teaching was the main and only formative assessment strategy to know whether students have understood what is been taught. We found that teacher-centered approaches to assessment dominated their online assessment practices. Teachers became the centre of assessment process with little students’ participation.

Increase in hodgepodge grading
Teachers used grading as motivation to encourage students to attend the online class and participate in instructional activities. Teachers indicated that they awarded marks for classroom participation, attendance, and punctuality of students. These are non-achievement factors (i.e., hodgepodge grading) teachers considered when grading students.

Feedback practices
Teachers indicated that they provided general oral and random feedback to students. This was because they felt they could not address all students’ concerns, so they observed recurrent concerns and addressed them orally during teaching and learning.
Differentiated assessment
Most of the teachers developed innovative ways of attending and supporting students with special assessment needs. Most of these teachers indicated that due to the limited instructional time, they created a special online space after class to attend to students with special assessment needs.
Remote assessment challenges
Affordability and user-friendliness of online teaching platforms
Despite the development of a learning management platform by teacher training institutions to be used for online teaching and assessment, most teachers preferred to use telegram. They explained that the other learning management platforms were not user-friendly and had technical challenges, hence the preference for telegram. Other teachers found telegram more useful because it is affordable for both teachers and students to have full access.

Limited knowledge and use of the online teaching platform to assess
We found that teachers had limited knowledge of how to navigate and use the online teaching platform for assessment.

Inadequate professional training and access to technological resources
Unstable internet connectivity and high internet cost were the main challenges most of the teachers faced during online teaching and assessment. In addition, most of the teachers in our study reported that they had no prior teaching or remote assessment experience. The professional training they had on remote teaching and assessment was not sufficient to prepare them for effective online teaching and assessment.

Concerns about academic integrity
Concern about academic dishonesty was a challenge. Most teachers were hesitant to conduct summative assessment during remote teaching because they were concerned that academic dishonesty may increase.

Lessons learned and future directions
Learning opportunity to develop new skills
Despite the myriad of challenges, the teacher educators faced due to the abrupt move to remote teaching, they reported that the experience was a learning opportunity for them. Most of them voiced that the challenges they faced were largely due to lack of experience with remote teaching. However, they developed certain online teaching skills that can be used in their current and future teaching practices.

Scholarly significance
This study explored the remote assessment experiences of teacher educators in Ghana. It is the first in Ghana and part of the few in sub-Saharan Africa to highlight key experiences of teacher educators during emergency remote assessment amid COVID-19. This study provides an initial and significant understanding of how teacher educators in Ghana responded, navigated and coped with remote teaching and assessment. Therefore, our findings are critical to improving and supporting teachers’ professional development, helping them to effectively support and report online student learning.

Authors

• David Baidoo-Anu, Faculty of Education Queen's University

• Daniel Asamoah, Universiti Brunei Darussalam

• Eric Atta Quainoo, Beijing Normal University

• Ernest Ofori Sasu, ADA COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

• Kenneth gyamerah, Faculty of Education, Queen's University