Abstract
M.Ed.
Changes in learner assessment practices that accompanied the introduction of Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) have been subject to a huge amount of controversy and dissatisfaction amongst many South African teachers in public schools in recent years. Outcomes -Based Assessment (OBA) in particular has been a source of great frustration for most teachers. The huge administrative workloads that accompanied OBA, the changing contexts of educational institutions, the poor quality of teacher training in preparation for OBE has made it very difficult for most teachers to move from traditional teaching practices and assessment methods to OBE teaching practices and learner assessment methods. Studies conducted in South Africa and abroad provide evidence that adaptation to OBE has been difficult, and it is evident that teachers in countries where OBE was introduced faced similar problems. Given these circumstances, this inquiry focuses specifically on OBA. It aims at establishing whether OBA practices are a true reflection of a learner’s performance given the difficulties that teachers experience with regard to the implementation of these assessment practices. Conversations, follow-up interviews and classroom observation sessions have been used to construct narratives of teachers’ experiences of OBA. These stories are interpretations of the data gathered through the interactions with the participants, and provide responses to the research question, which aims to establish whether OBA is a reflection of the learners’ performance and whether learner assessment on paper correlates with what is done in practice. Clandinin and Connelly (2000: 49) are proponents of what they refer to as the metaphorical three dimensional inquiry space as a research framework in narrative inquiry, where the experiences of the participants are captured in the temporal, social and contextual dimensions. I worked within the parameters of this metaphorical three dimensional inquiry space to create narratives of the participant’s experiences using their inward and outward experiences to create stories of their past, present and future learner assessment practices in the hope that this would inform educationists of the value of having an insight into, and understanding of, the teacher practitioners’ experiences and perspectives in order to ensure that assessment practices can be reconciled with policy in the ever changing educational contexts of the twenty-first century.