Chapter 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURES AND STUDIES

This chapter presents the literature and studies read and reviewed by the researchers and

found to have bearing on the present study.

Foreign Literature

The graduates produced by certain college or institution serves as a barometer that gauges

the quality of education they provided. In like manner, some institution often rightly attempt to

employ procedures to measure their students’ understanding of specific content or the effective

application of critical and practical thinking skills.

Why there is a need for Continuous Assessment? In one of Kelly, 2019’s journal she

noted that such assessments are not just used to determine whether students have learned what

they were expected to learn or to level or degree to which students have learned the material,

measure learning progress and achievement, and measure student progress toward stated

improvement goals or to determine student placement in programs but also to evaluate the

effectiveness of educational programs implemented.

 Continuous Assessment for Improved Teaching and Learning: A Critical Review to

Inform Policy and Practice by UNESCO International Bureau of Education, further elaborated

that the effects of assessment corresponds to its two core purposes in at least two main ways.

First, they measure the degree to which students are learning what the society requires and

desires of its graduates. Second, they serve to inform decisions and actions about the many

factors a system (and broader society) provide and manage to secure such learning.

What are the ways to assess students? In current education system we have many ways to

assess students. These help to gauze how much students learned over last curriculum cycle

(Rohitp, 2017). According to Using Alternative Assessments in Vocational Education (Stecher et

al., 1997) there are four major categories of assessment strategies:

(1) Performance tasks, this are hands-on activities that require students to demonstrate their
ability to perform certain actions. (2) Senior Projects, this are distinct because it reflect work done
over an extended period rather than in response to a particular prompt. It has three components: a
research paper, a product or activity, and an oral presentation, all associated with a single career-
related theme or topic. (3) Portfolios, like senior project, a portfolio is a cumulative assessment
that represents a student’s work and documents his or her performance. (4) Written Assessment,
the most common form of assessment, this are activities in which student selects or composes a
response to a prompt. In most cases, the prompt consists of printed materials, a brief question, a
collection of historical documents, graphic or tabular material, or a combination of these. These
constraints contribute to standardization of testing conditions, which increases the comparability
of results across students or groups.

What are the benefits of examination or testing as continuous assessment? Psychology of

Learning and Motivation (Roediger III et al., 2011) enumerated benefits of testing and their

applications to educational practice as follows:

 (1) Testing identifies gaps knowledge. Taking tests permits students to assess what they know
and what they do not know, so that the can concentrate study efforts on areas in which their
knowledge is deficient and allocate future study time accordingly. (2) Testing cause students to
learn more from the next study episode. Retrieval practice can enhance learning during future
study sessions. That is, when students take a test and then restudy material, they learn more from
the presentation that they would if they restudied without taking a test. (3) Testing produces
better organization of knowledge. Testing can increase both category clustering and subjective
organization of materials compared to restudying, and this may be one of the underlying
mechanism driving the testing effect. (4) Testing improves transfer of knowledge to next new
contexts. Transfer may be defined as applying knowledge learned in one situation to a new
situation. Some evidence suggests that repeated testing can facilitate transfer better than
restudying. (5) Testing can facilitate retrieval of material that was not tested. Research on testing
suggests that retrieval practice does not simply enhance retention of the individual items retrieved
during the initial test can also produce retrieval-induced facilitation–a phenomenon that shows
testing also improves retention of non-tested but related material. (6) Testing improves
metacognitive monitoring. Testing permits students to have better calibration of their knowledge.
(7) Testing prevents interference from prior material when learning new material. Tests create a
release from proactive interference. (8) Testing provides feedback to instructors. Testing can do
more than help students learn: testing can provide teachers with valuable feedback about what the
students do and do not know, and teachers in turn can encourage students to change their study
behavior. (9) Frequent testing encourages students to study. Integrating more tests across the
course of the semester will encourage students to study more consistently throughout the
semester, which will increase performance.

On the other side, they also cited some possible negative consequences of testing. First,

retrieval practice through testing produces “rote’ learning of a superficial sort, as if the student

can parrot back the information but not really understand it or know it in a deep fashion.

Learning is said to become “inert” or ‘encapsulated” in little factoid bubbles. Second, Many

studies have documented a phenomenon variously called output interference (Tulving &

Arbuckle, 1966), the inhibitory effects of recall (Roediger, 1974, 1978), or retrieval-induced

forgetting (Anderson et al., 1994). The basic phenomenon is that while the act of retrieval may

boost recall of the retrieved information, it can actually harm recall of non-tested information.

Thus, the fear is if students repeatedly retrieve some information, they may actually cause

themselves to forget other information.

 Assessment of learning is not one time movement, it is progressing process. It

includes the procedure of checking on, reflecting and modifying the learning techniques in an

arranged and cautious way. In this process, observations are made time to time to collect data to

determine the level of student’s knowledge, understanding and performance (Abejehu, 2016).

Assessment is closely intertwined with teaching and learning. It cannot be separated from a

vision about the kind of learning that is valued and the teaching and learning strategies that can

help students to get there. To optimize the potential assessment to improve what is at the heart of

education – student learning – policy makers should promote the regular use of assessment

results for improvements in the classroom. All types of assessment should have educational

value, and be meaningful to those who participate in the assessment. Use the assessment

information for further improvement. On the other hand, carefully planned assessment

interventions that are well aligned with learning goals and place students at the center of the

process have strong potential to raise achievement and reduce disparities.

Local Literature

Accountants and auditors ranks as one of the highest paying and prominent local jobs

these days (DOLE (Department of Labor and Employment), 2019). Consistent to this, the

Commission on Higher Education (CHED), listed business administration and related courses

like Bachelor of Science in Accountancy (BSA) as one of the most in demand courses in the

Philippines.
 Accordingly, CHED through memorandum quoted the primary goal of accounting

education and that is:

To produce competent and ethical professional accountants capable of making a positive

contribution over their lifetimes to the profession and society in which they work. In the face of
increasing changes that they will meet later as professional accountants, it is essential that
students develop and maintain an attitude of learning to learn, to maintain their competence later
as professional accountants. (CHED Memorandum Order No. 03 Series of 2007)

Dependably, in another memorandum, CHED challenges the educators to deliver

professional accounting education programs that will respond to the changing needs of the

international accountancy profession as well as individual accountants. Educators are encouraged

to use broad range of learner-centered teaching methods that include using of measurement and

evaluation methods that reflect the changing knowledge, skills, and values, ethics, and attitudes

required of accountants. Education programs need to include reflection when students are

required to consider an experience, what did not work and what approach should be taken in the

future similar circumstances. (CHED Memorandum Order No. 27 Series of 2017)

By the mandate of the highest governing body for higher education in the country,

consistent assessment and evaluation is a must to adapt to the constant changes in the accounting

profession both locally and internationally:

Students should be allowed to continue the BSA program only by maintaining a satisfactory
grade level as stated in the school retention policy. To ensure that grades are a fair measure of
academic performance, final departmental examinations of sufficient length and complexity
should be required in all accounting, managerial finance, CPA Board-related courses, and
preferably, in all business core subjects. (CHED Memorandum Order No. 03 Series of 2007)

Through this, different universities and academe try to employ various procedures and

retention policy that will further equip their students to the licensure examination for there is a
consistent decline in the national passing rate and that also prepare them to the possible

challenges in the practical world.