Massification in Universities: Are assessment tools still reliable? A reflection from Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania
| dc.contributor.author | Mayeka, James George | |
| dc.contributor.author | Kira, Ernest Simon | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2023-08-25T09:04:53Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2023-08-25T09:04:53Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2021 | |
| dc.description | Journal article | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | 1. Introduction A tremendous increase of the number of students in universities has been experienced by almost every country all over the world. While, the global universities’ enrolment has risen from 13.8% in 1990 to 29% in 2010, Sub- Saharan Africa has experienced a doubling of gross enrolment ratios from 3% in 1990 to 7% in 2010 (Hornsby & Osman, 2014). In Tanzania, the situation has become more evident in the recent past (Kapinga & Amani, 2016). According to Memba & Feng (2016), students’ enrolments in Tanzanian universities increased from 98,915 to 354,430 between 2008/2009 and 2015/2016 academic years, respectively. Sokoine University of Agriculture which is one of the public universities in Tanzania was established in 1 st July, 1984 (Sokoine University of Agriculture, 2007). Since its establishment, the university has also been experiencing the massive increase of the number of student just like other universities in the country. For example, the number of students raised almost four times from 2729 in 2008/2009 to 8296 in 2016/2017 academic years. Following this increase in number of students in universities, the instructor-student ratio has been greatly affected leading to ineffective provision of quality teaching and student assessments (Ntim, 2016). Large classes in education institutions affect much the interaction among instructors and students. Increase in numbers of students lead to poor communications among instructors with their students and the general practices of designing and using appropriate assessment tools (Alomari & Akour, 2014). Large classes hinder instructors to organize quizzes and regular class tests resulting into inefficient assessment of teaching and learning process (Yelkpieri, Namale, Esia-donkoh & Ofosu-dwamena, 2012). The increase in number of students in any education institution has turned the normal way of conducting assessment among students in universities. Regardless of the increasing number, universities would wish to maintain the quality of the programs offered. One of the means of maintaining quality of training is through effective evaluation of teaching and learning process. Effective evaluation requires valid and reliable assessment tools. Therefore, the need to check for internal consistency of the assessment tools used for teaching and learning in Tanzanian universities is one of the important aspects for effective assessment. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.issn | 2222-1735 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://www.suaire.sua.ac.tz/handle/123456789/5679 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.publisher | IISTE | en_US |
| dc.subject | Massification | en_US |
| dc.subject | Internal consistency | en_US |
| dc.subject | Difficulty Index | en_US |
| dc.subject | Discrimination Index | en_US |
| dc.title | Massification in Universities: Are assessment tools still reliable? A reflection from Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania | en_US |
| dc.type | Article | en_US |
| dc.url | : https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354312176 | en_US |