Gauging the assessment literacy of Malaysia’s home economics teachers: An empirical study

Abstract

In the effort to develop a world class educational system for Malaysia, the knowledge and skill in classroomassessment has to be upgraded to allow teachers to carry out a more effective teaching and learning process. Thus,the objectives of this study were to measure the level of assessment literacy based on the Standard for Teachers’Competence in Educational Assessment of Students (AFT, NCME, NEA, 1990) and also to identify differences inassessment literacy based on teachers’ experience practising competency-based assessment. The instrument used tomeasure Teacher’s Assessment Literacyconsisted of 41 multiple choice items with the reliability index (KR20) =.73.Primary data were gathered from questionnaires completed and returned by 187 home economic teachers teachingVocational Subjects in Malaysian secondary schools . The result of One-Way ANOVA test indicated that there wasa significant difference between teachers’ assessment literacy and their experience of practising competency-basedassessment (F (2,184=3.46, p< .05). The findings reflected that Home Economics teachers in Malaysia’s secondaryschools had an average level of assessment literacy. Therefore, there is an urgent need for continuous professionaldevelopment courses involving classroom assessment for Home Economics teachers to improve their practices, inparticular, competency-based assessment.Keywords: assessment literacy, competency-based assessment, educational assessment, home economics, schoolbased assessment, standard for teacher competence