LEARNERS’ AND THEIR TEACHER’S EXPERIENCES OF AN AUTHENTIC ONLINE ASSESSMENT TEST IN THE UNDERSTANDING OF BASIC ACCOUNTING CONTENT KNOWLEDGE

Year 2016, Volume: 2 Issue: 6, 345 - 356, 09.12.2016

Rabaitse Diseko Wendy Modiba

https://doi.org/10.18768/ijaedu.280378

Abstract

Accounting
as a school subject provides a foundation for understanding the economic
activities and conditions of a business, it serves as a common language both within
the business and for communicating business information to the external
financial community. When learners grasp the key financial transactions as well
as the analysis, interpretation and communication of financial statements, they
are able to understand the fundamental concepts of basic accounting principles
and practice. However, there is a lack of adequate preparation at school level
in accounting. Learners are taught how to do accounting, but the principles and
reasons for accounting, that is, the basic concepts of accounting, are not
adequately taught and assessed (Steenkamp, Baard & Frick, 2010).
As a result, South African learners’ performance in the subject is poor. We
contend that teachers contribute to poor performance because they have inadequacies
in their own content knowledge of the subject (Ozden, 2008), as they were not
properly trained and equipped to teach it competently (Letshwene, 2014). They
also employ inadequate assessment techniques in the subject by using a
traditional paper-based approach (Ngwenya & Maistry, 2012). As a way of
supporting teachers in their teaching practice, the Department of Education has
formulated assessment guidelines that prescribe an alternative form of
assessment that can be completed electronically, using online assessment to
gauge learners’ understanding of content knowledge of any topic. The usefulness
of an online assessment tool is measured in terms of how it reveals the
understanding and content knowledge of learners in a meaningful social context.
Thus, the aim of this paper is to report on the design of an authentic online
assessment of grade 10 learners’ and their teacher’s understanding of basic
accounting content knowledge. QuestBase software was used in the design of
online assessment embedded within the theoretical constructs of authentic
learning, and with the first three cognitive levels of the revised Bloom’s
taxonomy. The theoretical framework of authentic learning mirrors real-world
relevance with authentic activities from multiple perspectives and provides the
opportunity for learners to reflect on the learning process. An exploratory
qualitative case study design was used in this inquiry and qualitative data was
generated from individual and focus-group interviews and observation. Findings
indicated that the participants (six learners and their teacher) had positive
experiences in completing the authentic online assessment test of basic
accounting content knowledge. However, learners still struggled to successfully
deal with calculations and also showed a lack of knowledge and understanding of
the basic concepts of the subject. Most significantly, this paper aims not to
“prove that learning has improved” but rather that the use of an online
assessment tool (QuestBase) within the theoretical framework of authentic
learning and assessment reflects the real-life context of learners.

Keywords

Accounting, authentic learning, authentic online assessment, Bloom’s taxonomy, QuestBase, Secondary school

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