Abstract:
Economics as a school subject helps students understand and develop basic economic skills needed for self and national development. However, available records have shown that many Senior Secondary Students (SSSs) in Oke-Ogun area of Oyo State performed poorly in Economics in public examinations; a trend which has been partly attributed to adoption of poor assessment strategies. Previous studies have focused largely on continuous assessment strategies which fostered memorization and regurgitation of ideas with little attention paid to Portfolio Assessment (PfA) and Peer Assessment (PeA) which enhance knowledge construction. This study, therefore, was designed to determine the effects of PfA and PeA on students’ learning outcomes (achievement and soft skills) in Economics in Oke-Ogun area of Oyo State. The moderating effects of teacher competence and school type were also determined.
The study was anchored on Constructivism and Multiple Intelligence theories, while the pretest-posttest control group quasi-experimental design was adopted. Oke-Ogun area with records of high SSSs’ poor performance in Economics was focused on. One Local Government Area (LGA) each from upper (Saki-west) and lower (Itesiwaju) Oke-Ogun was randomly selected. Purposive sampling technique was adopted in selecting three public and private co-educational senior secondary schools in each LGA. An intact Economics class of SSS II was selected from each school; give a total of 406 students. The selected schools were randomly assigned to experimental (PfA and PeA) and control groups. The Instruments used were Economics Achievement Objective (r=0.92) and Essay (r=0.74) tests, Students’ Soft Skills Scale (r=0.88) and Test (r=0.69), Teacher Competence Observation Sheet (r=0.81) and instructional guides, while treatment lasted for 12 weeks. Data collected were analysed using t-test, Analysis of covariance and Sidak post-hoc at 0.05 level of significance.
Treatment had significant main effects on students’ achievement in Economics (F(2;393)=238.96; η2=0.55) and soft skills (F(2;393) =128.82;η2 =0.39). Students in PfA had the highest mean score in achievement and soft skills ( =77.81; =56.22), followed by those in PeA ( =66.05; =51.83) and control ( =48.59; =41.65) groups, respectively. Teacher competence had significant main effect on students’ achievement (F(2;393)=10.82;η2=0.03) and soft skills (F(1;393)=4.92;η2= 0.01) in Economics, while school type had significant main effect on students’ soft skills (F(1;393)=4.40;η2=0.01) but not on achievement. There was a significant two-way interaction effect of treatment and teacher competence on students’ soft skills (F(2;393=5.24;η2= 0.3) and not on achievement. There was a significant two-way interaction effect of treatment and school type on achievement (F(2;393)=10.85;η2= 0.05) but not on soft skills. The two-way interaction effects of teacher competence and school type on achievement and soft skills were not significant. The three-way interaction effect was significant on achievement (F(2;393)=3.76;η2 =0.02) but not on soft skills.
Portfolio assessment strategy enhanced secondary school students’ achievement in Economics and improved their soft skills. Economics teachers should be encouraged to adopt portfolio assessment strategy to facilitate effective learning.
