4.

Data Analysis, Result and Discussion

As the data collection tools are discussed under the methodology, this part is ready to analyses
the finding and discussion. The analysis includes the response of instructors, students with two
questions categories. The closed and open ended type questions where distributed to 44
instructors and 62 students haven taken at random sampling for the purpose of the study. The
response analysis and the way forwards or actions to be taken has been forwarded under the
same section.
4.1. Data Analysis from instructors Responses Aspect
There are two types of questionnaire types raised to instructors. The first section included agree,
disagree, neutral, yes or no type questions. The second type is an open ended questionnaires
type. These are discussed below.
4.1.1. The closed Type questionnaires Discussion
The research questionnaire of 44 was distributed to the AAiT academic staff. Among the
responses for the questions of agreements are indicated in Table 4.1. The response of the
academic staffs reveals that continuous assessment (CA) has its impact on the quality of
education and the parties involved in the assessment. CA is suitable to determine learners’
progress as the response rate of 27(84%) academic staffs reveals. The academic staffs also
consider CA gives a series evaluation to measure student’s performances was 22(69%) and
25(81%) of the respondents agree that CA enables lower attaining students receive daily
attention from the instructor. CA enables lower attaining students to experience success in
learning agreed 19(59%) of the respondents. 21 (68%) of the respondents agree on CA is time
consuming to implement and 0(63%) 0f the respondents agree on that CA increases burden or
overload to instructors. The 25(74%) of the response of CA needs a lot of resources and 21(58%)
of the response agree on CA allows the students to build on their existing knowledge to develop
new skills. 17 (52%) of the respondents agree on CA allows the students to build on their
existing knowledge to develop attitudes and 23(74%) of the respondents agree on CA allows
students to know their strength and weakness in the courses and help for adequate preparation for
final exam.
Table 4.1: Agreement statements response by instructors
s/n Questions items Tota Disagree N (%) Agree N Neutral
l (%) N (%)
1 CA is suitable to determine learners’ 32 1(3%) 27(84%) 4(13%)
 progress.
2 consider CA gives a series evaluation 32 4(13%) 22(69%) 6(19%)
to measure students performances
3 CA enables lower attaining students 31 4(13%) 25(81%) 2(6%)
receive daily attention from the
instructor
4 CA enables lower attaining students to 32 5(16%) 19(59%) 8(25%)
experience success in learning
5 CA is time consuming to implement 31 8(26%) 21(68%) 2(6%)
6 CA increases burden or overload to 32 9(28%) 20(63%) 3(9%)
instructors
7 CA needs a lot of resources 34 4(12%) 25(74%) 5(15%)
8 CA allows the students to build on their 36 4(11%) 21(58%) 11(31%)
existing knowledge to develop new
skills
9 CA allows the students to build on their 33 5(15%) 17(52%) 11(33%)
existing knowledge to develop attitudes
10 CA allows students to know their 32 4(13%) 23(72%) 5(16%)
strength and weakness in the courses
and help for adequate preparation for
final exam.
11 CA influences both exam results and 33 5(15%) 27(82%) 1(3%)
final grade
12 CA helps the students to reflect their 31 5(16%) 20(65%) 6(19%)
work by presentation
13 Students do their assignments by 37 20(54%) 8(22%) 9(24%)
themselves
14 Group project or work helps students to 33 6(18%) 25(76%) 2(6%)
improve their knowledge
15 Instructors evaluate the group project by 34 14(41%) 11(32%) 9(26%)
asking all individual group members
16 Attendance taking is part of CA 40 7(18%) 23(58%) 10(25%)
17 Teachers satisfy in the students answer 37 15(41%) 6(16%) 16(43%)

The respondents also agree on the CA influences both exam results and final grade response was
27(82%) and 20 (65%) of the respondents agree that CA helps the students to reflect their work
by presentation as well as 20(54%0 of the respondents disagree that Students do their
assignments by themselves. The 25 (76%) of the respondents agree that group project or work
helps students to improve their knowledge and 14 (41%) of the respondents do not agree that
instructors evaluate the group project by asking all individual group members. Attendance taking
is assumed to be that part of the CA by 23(58%) of the respondents of the academic staffs. Few
academic staffs agree that they are satisfied in the students answer and 15(41%) of the
respondents agree that students answer is not satisfactory to their questions.
Continuous assessment techniques used by most of teachers also requested. The teachers have
given their response to the techniques they agree in most of the time in evaluating their students.
Test or quiz, group project, individual assignment, intermediate exam, project work, laboratory
test and final exams are most commonly used techniques in AAiT. Fig 4.1 indicates the
techniques used for the students’ evaluation and the most commonly used tools are shown
clearly.

CA Techniques
percentage of agrements level on techniques

120.0%
100.0%
80.0%
60.0%
40.0%
20.0%
0.0% D%
iz k k A%
qu en
t
am en
t
on ns or or es
t
on
/ m ex m ati stio w w yt ati N%
st n i d n r v e l d c t o r i n
Te si g /m ss
ig se qu Fi
e
oj
e at m
as n lA Ob al Pr or xa
u p ti o
u a O r ab ale
o a d L n
Gr in vi Fi
am n di
ex I
te
d ia
e
rm
te
In

Types of CA techniques used by instructors

Figure 4.1: the student’s evaluation techniques

The questionnaire was also prepared on factors affect the continuous assessment in AAiT. These
factors which affect continuous assessment in the AAiT or engineering institute has been
distributed in questionnaire format for the institute instructors. The factors obtained from
literature and experiences of the researchers were considered during the study time as shown in
Fig. 4.2. These factors were approached by yes or no closed type questionnaires.
These numbers of factors which affect the quality of continuous assessments were distributed
and almost all of them have impact on CA. The most influential factors are large class size,
negative attitude of students towards CA, shortage of time shortage of teaching materials, low
readiness of students, lack of teachers’ commitment, and absence of teaching materials. Among
the factors the one which affect the learning teaching process in CA process are teachers
commitments, large class size, negative attitude of the students toward CA and shortage of time
which encompasses of more than 80% of the respondents agreement.
 Figure 4. 2: CA factors affecting learning teaching process.

4.1.2. Response of instructors to Open Type Questions

Two questions raised to the instructors related to strength and challenges on CA systems.
One question raised was what you think about the strength and opportunities of continuous
assessment. they responded as follows with the key points.
Strengths:
 Increase the students thinking capability
 Help students to able to read daily
 Add value to the students’ knowledge and skill through experience sharing among each
other while they participate for the purpose of the accomplishing their task
 It encourages students to follow up their studies, read more and broader than the scope.
 It also allows both students and teachers to identify which content of the course at hand is
challenging and thereby serves as an incentive to use a dynamic teaching- learning
process.
 It provides the students with timely and constant opportunities to enhance their
understanding of the material.
 Convenient to assess students’ status/performance/ understanding throughout the
semester.
 Keeps the students on their toes.
 Helps and forces students to constantly read and study.
  Gives instructors better picture of a student’s overall performance, as having multiple
assessments tells a more realistic story about a student than one/ two exams.
 Students with better understanding of the course
 Better and efficient transfer of knowledge
 It encourages fair evaluations
 It helps to evaluate student’s activity/performances timely and support them;
 Active teaching method with students’ involvement;
 It gives satisfaction to instructors’ while looking students’ encouragements,
 It provides pleasure to students for better assessment and reasonable grading;
 Effective utilization of time to cover the course materials accordingly;
 It encourages developing skill, knowledge and attitude.
Opportunity:
 It helps student’s motivation to active learning.
 Create enforced time management to the instructors and help them to get accomplish
their task on time
 Reduce delay of grade reporting
 Reduce load of the eleventh hour to the students and instructors
The second question raised was that what you think the challenges and threats of
continuous assessment in AAiT.
Challenges:
 Lack of resources and infrastructure at teaching-learning process
 Weak students and teachers commitment
 Imposition of tight time both on students and instructors
 Weak students strength on achieving all the 360 degree assignments i.e. assignments
provided to the students from all directions
 In some cases, teachers simply become tired of assessing students through continuous
class quizzes/short exams. At the same time, the invigilation process during these
continuous assessments is not as strong as that of final exams and students find it
easier to cheat.
 Work load on the teachers; this is an obvious challenge that comes with such systems
as teachers are expected to correct and grade every mode of assessment and deliver
on time.
  Poor time management.
 Lack of appropriate teaching materials
 Instructors with little practical knowledge
 Poor motivation/ attitude of students towards continuous assessment
 Lack of resources: exam rooms, conflicts with teaching time and exams. Basically it
is hard to implement with the current number of students at AAiT.
 It adds extra load to instructors in order to handle efficiently and makes the students
too busy throughout the semester;
 Shortage of standard teaching-learning materials/facilities/resources;
 CA implementation in large class size in providing feedback;
 Lack of commitment from instructors and top management;
 Lack of skilled, knowledgeable and experienced instructors for each courses;
Threats
 Not attaining the intended purpose of CA
 Grade inflation without concert knowledge of the subject matter;
 Difficult to identify active learners from inactive learners in large class size;
 Number of Poor performing students in high school.
4.2. Data Analysis from the student’s Response aspect
There are two types of questionnaire types raised to students. The first section included agree,
disagree, neutral, yes or no type questions. The second type is an open ended questionnaires
type. These are discussed below.

4.2.1. Data analysis From Closed Types of Questionnaires

The responses obtained from the students on AAiT existing practice of implementing CA
techniques/tools used by instructors. The respondents responded to techniques raised such as
individual work, class works, individual assignment, group works, group Assignment, test/quiz,
intermediate exam/mid exam, final exam, laboratory works and field work. As indicated in Table
4.3, most of the respondents agree on frequently used assessment techniques. These techniques
are individual work (79%), individual assignment (82%), group works (84%), test or quiz (85%),
mid exam (87% and final exam (95%). It is clear from this that most of the instructors use the
techniques for CA the mentioned tools. It can be concluded that instructors assess students’
progress in their day‐ to‐day activities rather than at the end of the unit of the course has less
emphasis by the students. The average response obtained from the students is that the instructor
asses the students and then provide feedback after the evaluation. That means the instructors in
average do not give feed back to the students’ evaluation. The students with response of 62%
agree on that CA create better opportunities for lower attaining students to get support from their
peers.
Table 4.3: the types of continuous assessments given by AAiT instructors
s/n Questions items total Disagree Agree% Neutral
% %
1 Individual work 62 6(10%) 49(79%) 7(11%)
2 class works 60 13(22%) 36(60%) 11(18%)
3 Individual assignment 61 7(11%) 50(82%) 4(7%)
4 group works 62 6(10%) 52(84%) 4()6%
5 Group Assignment 62 6(10%) 51(82%) 5(8%)
6 Test/quiz 61 4(7%) 52(85%) 5(8%)
7 Intermediate exam/mid exam 61 4(7%) 53(87%) 4(7%)
8 Final exam 60 0(0%) 57(95%) 3(5%)
9 Laboratory works 61 16(26%) 41(67%) 4(7%)
10 Field work 62 20(32%) 37(60%) 5(8%)
11 Instructors assess your progress in your day‐ to‐day 59 22(37%) 30(51%) 7(12%)
activities rather than at the end of the unit
12 Instructors give us immediate and continuous 60 19(32%) 30(50%) 11(18%)
feedback for our achievements
13 CA create better opportunities for lower 60 14(23%) 37(62%) 9(15%)
attaining students to get support from their peers
The survey also made to assess the types of the exams given by the instructor in AAiT. The
response related to the types of exams most commonly used was obtained as shown in Figure
4.3. The most common types of exams accustomed in AAiT are calculation with 100% response
yes. The next two types of exams common to the AAiT are discussion and short answer with the
respondents’ rate of greater than 80% yes. The 60% of the respondents replied that essay types
are given in the institute; the remaining types of exam are not common.
 110%
90%
percentage of respondents to yes no

70%
50%
30%
10%
Multiple Filling in Essay type Calculation Discussion Short an- True-
choice the balk types swer type false/yes/ No%
no Yes%
Yes% 0.1864406 0.2295081 0.5964912 1 0.8474576 0.85 0.1666666
77966102 96721311 28070175 27118644 66666667

No% 0.8135593 0.7704918 0.4035087 0 0.1525423 0.15 0.8333333

22033898 03278689 71929825 72881356 33333333

Types of assesment tools

Figure 4.3: The types of examinations that instructor gives to the students

4.2.2. Responses on Open Type Questions

The question rose as what they think about the strength and opportunities of continuous
assessment. The respondents have given their response listing their ide as follow.
Strength:
 Help students to understand types of exam
 Help to read always and be ready
 Increase the ability of reading of the students
 It helps students in positioning themselves on the course materials level of
understanding/capability;
 Promote long-lasting knowledge, skill and attitude in the minds of learners;
 Low achiever students can get chances to work with and share knowledge, skill
and attitude from high achievers;
 CA a powerful diagnostic tool that enable students to understand the course
materials effectively.
Opportunities:
 Create more transparency in higher education system.
 Allows the students to come together and develop their culture of helping each
other
 Allow students to go away from their own territories
The second open ended question raised to the students was what they think about the challenges
and threats of continuous assessment in AAiT. The students have given their responses in the
following ways.
Challenges
 It increases load on the students
 It is requires more time and emphasis
 It needs more commitment but now were this is not true
 It lacks the responsibility of the students and teachers which is a challenge for practicing
CA fully
 The weak infrastructure, Resources and internet access
 It might provide stress to students due to continuous assignments, tests and various work
load for each type of courses simultaneously;
 Adversely affect the relationship with students and instructors;
 Some instructors don’t provide enough time for their teaching duties and difficulties to
implement CA properly;
 CA might not feasible in large class sizes;
 Poor understanding of CA and low level capacity of students to understand the
assignments;
 lack of pertinent skill to implement CA tools;
Threats:
 Commitment and capacity of some instructors to implement CA guidelines;
 Students might not be interested in CA.
4.3. Actions and Way Forwards
Based on the responses and finding the most challenges and strengths conditions were identified.
The areas which need more attention are defined under the response analysis. The continuous
assessment improvement images from the analysis made above.

It is better to have strategies to improve student learning and teachers teaching. There are
increasing evidences that students learn most effectively when they understand course and
program goals and the characteristics of excellent work. Here, awareness creation on both
students and instructors on benefits of CA so that students are academically challenged and
encouraged to focus on developing higher-order thinking skills, such as critical thinking and
problem solving, as well as discipline-specific knowledge. Engaging students in
multidimensional “real world” tasks and supporting the students at the class or outside class
time.

The instructors are also given training regarding how to conduct CA and how to handle it. The
instructors should able to:

 Keep the focus on teaching and learning,

 Align summative and formative assessment approaches,
 Ensure that data gathered at classroom, school, and system levels are linked and are used
formatively.
 Invest in training and support for formative assessment.
 Encourage innovative teaching and support by study and
 Build stronger bridges between research, policy, and practice.
 emphasizes on the quality rather than the quantity of student work;
 values giving advice and guidance over giving grades;
 avoids comparing students in favor of enabling individual students to assess their own
learning;
 fosters dialogues that explore understandings rather than lectures that present information;
 encourages multiple iterations of an assessment cycle, each focused on a few issues; and
 Provides feedback that engenders motivation and leads to improvement.

4.4. Conclusion and Recommendation

The research showed that CA is somehow ineffectively managed in AAiT. The different reasons
for infective exercising have been found. The response from the instructor and students optioned
tell us that there are many challenges to exercise CA. the most challenges that was identified are
large class size, consuming more time, over burden or load both to students and instructors, lack
of awareness and commitment on both parties, and at large the absence of infrastructures such as
internet, resources.

The opportunities also assessed. There are numbers of opportunities if the CA mechanism
properly practiced and exercised. Create more transparency in higher education system. The
opportunities that can be mentioned are: CA allows the students to come together and develop
their culture of helping each other; allow students to go away from their own territories; it helps
student’s motivation to active learning; create enforced time management to the instructors and
help them to get accomplish their task on time; reduce delay of grade reporting; and reduce load
of the eleventh hour to the students and instructors.

The research recommends the institute to revise the curriculum regarding the continuous
assessment and take further studies. Then revise the CA approach after discussion with the
students, instructors and looking into resource constraints.