Research Proposal Master of Teaching

Question: Does the use of students self-assessment improves the academic achievement, through test results, in the context of a year eight mathematic classroom? Answer: The objective of the research project is to determine whether the use of student's self-assessment improves the academic achievement or not using test results, in the environment of year eight mathematics classroom. In high schools, the utilization of math technology is important as it improves the skills of the students. It's because of this utilization; the teachers can separate the high math students from the weaker ones. In most of the situations, the students in high school math classes feel that math is too hard for them(Gould, Marshall, Scheppler, Palmisano, 2003). The main thing is that the concept of high school math is beyond them. For example, high school mathematics is one of the subjects where students find hard to understand. Due to this feelings, negative perceptions are born in them, and these perceptions lead to negative attitudes. Consequently, it impacts the performance of the students. It is important for the teachers to help them in every possible way to maximiz e their achievements. A regular self-assessment of the students is very useful in improving the outcomes of the student(Morrow, Gambrell, Pressley, 2003). The students can use formative assessment which will help them to learn and provide them potential in order to improve their outcomes in assessment. Self-assessment is another tool which is used to improve the student outcomes. When the students will get into a habit of self-assessing their work, they will fix their goals and objectives after knowing their current level of learning. In this way, they can improve their marks. Research Question Does the use of students self-assessment improves the academic achievement, through test results, in the context of a year eight mathematic classroom? The use of regular self-assessment strategies by the students will help them to aim at enhancing their levels of achievement based on stage 4 mathematics. The teachers need to follow some approaches such as explaining the students about their learning goals and guide them through the process of self-assessment. Literature Review The literature review contains the practical and theoretical arguments for the effectiveness of self-assessment. Moreover, the power of self-assessment is not a formal assessment tool but also a procedure that creates and engages motivational learners(Andrade Cizek, 2010).According to Carrier (2014), the importance of encouraging students for seeing themselves as scientists rather inactive spectators to the scientific professionals and their best or even alienating language. Osbourne and Wellington stated that every lesson in math should be a language lesson and that language is the primary barrier to most of the students towards learning math. Andrade and Du stated about self-assessment that it is a procedure of formative assessment during which the students reflect on and estimate the quality of their learning and their work(Sakthivel-Wainford, 2006). It has been well argued that assessments are the most beneficiary topic that provides feedback both to teachers and students. It he lps the students to learn well, and it improves the teaching procedure. Self-assessment can be observed by two ways. First one is the effect of learning and the second one is practice. Self-assessment is the primary tool for final assessment. According to Hearn and McMillan, the self-assessment of the student promotes intrinsic inspiration, determination, and more eloquent learning. They help to confirm that self-assessment advances a mastery goal positioning(Lindgren Bleicher, 2005). Its importance is in the development of education, knowledge as well as proficiency, instead of a goal oriented performance in which the more focus is done on the final grade or score, and it's significant for the student. Subsequently, the self-assessment of the students has been viewed as essential to achievement and accomplishment at school(Rusmono, 2015). There are words such as Practice makes a man perfect. The same is applied for students also. The students should use math procedures, test items, scoring rubrics and also product checklist(Mathematics practice, 2002). The product list is a mathematical system as well as product criteria which were developed for guiding students using self-assessment. The student must follow strategies which will be useful for practicing math. Strategies such as to write self-reflection teachers require starting by providing a framework for writing. Research Method and Evidences The research methods consist of quantitative and qualitative analysis. The purpose of this study was to test the efficiency of using the self-assessment in developing the academic performance of the student in grade 8 mathematics classrooms. Participants The research shows that a class test of thirty year eight grade Mathematics students, twenty young boys as well as ten young girls from a specific secondary school in Sydney's South West area, was utilized. The class met for sixty-minute periods five times a fortnight in which the investigation was directed and the significant conciliation was practiced. The grade eight students were given verbal clarifications of the examination being led and the procedure of self-evaluation was made temporary. Procedure The procedure consists of the instruments devices needed for this study in order to reflect the mixed model of quantitative and qualitative data. The project needs two types of data such as self-assessment records and test outcomes. The test results were shown in two phases, phase 1 and phase 2. Based on phase 1 test, the research was conducted on the mathematics chapters such as numbers and indices and 2D and 3D geometry. Pre-test were done before the starting of each topic in order to determine their prior knowledge. After the teaching of these topic post test were conducted to determine how much the students have understood and also improved. Similarly, Phase 2 test was conducted. The student can follow the table provided below as a timetable. Instruments Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Observations Monitoring sheets Assessments or Tests Reflective Journals The table below shows the test scores of the students. Student Phase 1 results in test Phase 2 results in test Pre-test out of 10 Post-test out of 15 Pre-test out of 20 Post-test out of 25 1 9.5 9 15 22 2 7 6 18 19 3 6 8 19.5 23.5 4 8.5 5.5 17.5 24 5 9 8.5 14.5 16 6 10 7.5 13 20.5 Here six students have been considered whose score was being provided. A self-assessment table is set out below to six students to determine their performance in mathematics. The self-assessment table falls in the category of qualitative data analysis. Student Ability to self-assess Low Medium High 1 2 3 4 5 6 Results: After the table, it is quite clear that the high students have strong articulations in learning, they answer in details and can identify the areas they need to improve. The medium students made an attempt to answer all questions. They also explained well thought and written. On the other hand, the weak students unable to respond to the questions. There are lots of incomplete answers. There is no sign of improvement for the poor students. References Andrade, H. Cizek, G. (2010).Handbook of formative assessment. New York: Routledge. Gionis, A. (2013). Data Analysis.Data Math Journal,12(0), GRDI13-GRDI18. Gould, S., Marshall, S., Scheppler, J., Palmisano, M. (2003).Math literacy for the twenty-first century. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. Lindgren, J. Bleicher, R. (2005). Learning the Learning Cycle: The Differential Effect on Elementary Preservice Teachers. Mathematics practice. (2002). London. Morrow, L., Gambrell, L., Pressley, M. (2003).Best practices in literacy instruction. New York: Guilford Press. Rusmono, .. (2015). Effect of learning strategies and anxiety of learning mathematics.IJRSE,4(3). Sakthivel-Wainford, K. (2006).Self assessment in limb X-ray interpretation. Keswick: M K.