The effect of different continuous evaluation methods on student ’ s learning of mathematics

Choosing a Proper continuous evaluation method has often referred to a problem. Teachers still do not know which continuous evaluation method can have a more effective influence on students' learning. It is needless to say that utilizing different continuous evaluation methods, has different effect on students' learning. In this paper, four methods, including weekly achievement tests, portfolio, participative evaluation and contribution to self and odder evaluation were implemented in a quasit-experimental type of research to study the second-grade high school students' knowledge in Robat Karim and Shahriar. 188 boy and girl students were randomly selected and assigned to for groups. Group 1, 2, 3 and four were given weekly achievement tests, portfolio, participative evaluation and contribution to self and odder evaluation, respectively. The results of ANOVA and Scheffe showed that using different methods of continuous evaluation have different effects on students' learning. Moreover the results of T-test signified that utilizing participative evaluation has more effective influence on students' learning.


Introduction
Educational activities of each country can be considered as investment of one generation for the next.The main goal of such investment is workforce development.In other words, the purpose of educational activities is to enhance the awareness and potential abilities of human beings.Moreover, education is generally a means of identifying social, economical, and cultural problems of a society, and finding solutions to such problems.Moreover, education system of each country stands first among the other governmental organizations and offices in terms of the size of workforce and created jobs.Considering this, education system can be regarded as the most complicated social, economical, and cultural subsystems.As education system has a significant duty, it is imperative to take advantage of the most appropriate methods to design and perform educational activities.One of the methods which can help to organize educational activities appropriately is systematic approach.Systematic approach helps us adjust http://www.ispacs.com/journals/metr/2017/metr-00059/International Scientific Publications and Consulting Services educational activities with the needs of the modern age and the future world.In this approach, evaluation is considered as an essential mechanism [1].In a lot of unhealthy education systems, evaluation method affects the goals and specifically educational activities [4].In such systems, the evaluation system leads everything, and stops the design and application of the evaluation process to achieve the ultimate goals and to complete lesson plans.Worse, it causes all trainings and educational activities to serve evaluation.The new beliefs in the education system emphasize that teachers should truly trust that each student is capable of learning provided that the traditional means of instruction which seeks student's weak points and ignores individual differences is abandoned, and a new means is created which identifies students' capabilities, gives them confidence, and which is based on the belief that education and evaluation are intertwined [10].Considering this, creativity and novelty is necessary in evaluation methods so that there will be changes in teaching methodologies.

Statement of the problem
In a dynamic education, new approaches to evaluation need to be introduced, and valid evaluation need to be developed by turning to valid education.Different groups, departments and societies around the world have tried to correct this system paying attention specifically to developing, continuous, and dynamic evaluation.Attention to learner's attitude and emotion is one of the fields developed by such attempts which has resulted in the emphasis on the necessity of providing various practical methods for the assessment and evaluation of learners.Along with this, attempts have been made to develop ideas such as helping students have deep, quality, and comprehensive learning, and evaluating student's performance in different tasks and giving them awareness of how well they are doing in their education.The study done by Funch et al (1985) titled, the effect of developmental evaluation on student's academic achievement is an example.The result of their study showed that the experiment group had a better performance compared to the control group which was not evaluated [6].Another study that is 'the effect of continuous evaluation on students' academic achievement' by Merkuffer (1995) demonstrated that student's performance and academic achievement will improve provided they get necessary feedback by developmental or other kinds of evaluation [9], It also referred to collaborative design of instructional sequences: teacher developed support for formative assessment by David C. Webb (2010) which introduces constructive methods [11].In addition, the results of the study by Farajolahi and Hagigi (2001) titled 'the effect of continuous evaluation on deepening of learning in second-graders of elementary schools in Tehran' showed that the experiment group outdid the control group in all levels of learning and creativity.In his study, The study of teachers' familiarity of developmental evaluation methods and their application in their classrooms in Hamedan, case study, Yadegarzadeh (1996).Stated that teachers have an average knowledge of concepts, definitions, administrative processes and continuous evaluation methods.However, they showed a limited awareness of administrative steps of continuous evaluation.The results also indicated that teachers allocated a limited time to continuous evaluation.As we now know, if students enjoy learning at school, they will most probably continue learning after graduation.They will actively participate in group activities if they develop their skills and gain a positive experience for team work as well [12].Considering this and the results of the studies of continuous achievement evaluation and supplying students with the feedback, it seems that following the goals of the education system with systematic approach requires new methods in continuous evaluation to be introduced.It also seems necessary that some of these methods be carried out adjusted with the current situation of the education system of the country and the limitations.Informing teachers of the results and applications of such methods could correct their views, and promote the use of such methods as a result.http://www.ispacs.com/journals/metr/2017/metr-00059/International Scientific Publications and Consulting Services However, the main issue is how to start the contentions and constructive evaluation.There are not any clearly defined instructions to select a specific constructive evaluation method, since one's choice is affected by different elements, normally course objectives, students' age, the topic and the content of lessons, the teacher's methodology, the number of students, etc. Considering all above, these methods have been introduced for continuous evaluation:  the teacher's written and oral comments Considering the above mentioned affective items, the teacher can implement one or some evaluation methods in the class.The selected method only needs to cover the constructive continuous evaluation objectives, classified by klecker as: 1. raising students' understanding of concepts 2. giving feedback to the instructor and students 3. improving learning atmosphere 4. utilizing various learning evaluation methods 5. Kelecker signifies giving feedback to teacher and students as the most important feature of continuous evaluation and emphasizes on the student-teacher and student-other student interaction.
In this study four continuous evaluation methods, namely " Weekly achievement tests", "Portfolio", "Participative evaluation" and "Contribution to self and other evaluation", were implemented in homogenous classes to signify the importance of a teacher's performance in choosing an efficient method of continuous evaluation in the research target class.

Hypotheses
Hypothesis one: there is a significant difference among different continuous evaluation methods.Hypothesis two: Methods with more participatory role for students have better influence on the learning process.

Methodologies
Population: it includes the 2856 second grade high school students of Robat Karim and Shahriar.Sample group and sampling: the sample group in this study includes the available sample namely the students of four second-grade classes in girl's high school and the students of one and three second-grade classes in boy's high schools, respectively.http://www.ispacs.com/journals/metr/2017/metr-00059/International Scientific Publications and Consulting Services Data collection: considering the studies done and limitations, four evaluation methods were chosen which include as follow: 1. Weekly achievement tests: these tests are a set of questions which students are required to answer in writing so that teachers will learn about their students more precisely, and help if necessary [5].2. Portfolio: portfolio is typically a set of a student's jobs which demonstrate their attempts, progress, and achievement in a specific area [3].In other words, portfolio is set of reports, diaries, activities, paintings and things like that which students have done to demonstrate their abilities and progress during a certain course and which is given to the teacher for the purpose of evaluation.3. Participative evaluation: In this method, students are assigned to groups of four to seven, and evaluated as a group.This means that all the members of the group will get the same score.This will encourage them to help each other solve their problems, enjoy more educational interaction and positive cooperation, and learn to respect each other.It will also prepare them to be open to new ideas which will result in being open to criticism, and more appropriate social behavior.4. Contribution to self and other evaluation: Students take the opportunity to evaluate their own or other's tasks in this method.This kind of evaluation enhances meta-cognitive skills, self learning, and independence of thought.Hence, students get to have a better understanding of their lessons as they have to know them well enough to judge themselves or others.They also learn about their weak points and those of their classmate's.This method generally boosts student's self confidence.Then, each method was randomly assigned to each of the 4 boy's or girl's classes.The students were informed of the evaluation method in the first session, and were given a ten-question written test as the pre-test.Finishing the experimental course, they were given the same test as the post-test to compare the students' scores, and study the hypotheses.During the experimental course, the teaching methodology was the same and only evaluation methods were different for different groups.The first experiment group, weekly achievement tests: at the beginning of every week, except the first one, almost twenty minutes was spent on a written test with three to four questions related to the subjects taught the week before.The students were informed of the results so that they could learn about their strong or weak points.The second group, Portfolio evaluation: after each session, the students were encouraged to collect information for their files which facilitated their learning by raising questions about the history, application, or examples of the subject.Then, their files were collected and evaluated at the end of each month.The participative group: the students were assigned to groups of four according to their pre-test scores.Then, although each of their tests was corrected and scored individually, the average of the scores of the team members was considered as each member's score.The fourth group, contribution to self and other evaluation: here, the students were assigned to groups of five according their scores in the pre-test, and one was assigned as the head of the group.The head was entitled to give a score up to five points to each member of their group according to their attempts.The rest of the score, that is fifteen points, was given to each group like the score given to each group in the participative group which was the average of the scores attained by all members of the group.

Results
At first, descriptive statistics were analyzed in table 1.It is shown that the average pre-test, post-test score difference is higher in group 3; participative evaluation group, compared to that of other group (5.40For selecting of proper test, normality and homogeneity of variances of data are studied via One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov and test of homogeneity of variance respectively.Data were normal and have homogeneity of variances (P>0.05) Figure 1: Mean Of pretest, post test scores differences

Hypothesis one
There is a significant difference among different continuous evaluation methods.For studying the difference between four groups, it is used of ANOVA test in meaningful level 0.05.The results of this test has indicated that there are differences among groups which considered as weekly tests, portfolio, participative and contribution to self and other evaluation (P<0.05) in table 3. The differences among four group are tested through Scheffe test in meaningful level of 0.05.The results of this test have shown that there are differences among for group separately.As it obvious in Table 4, there is difference between groups 1 and 3 also groups 2 and 3 and inversely (P<0.05).But there is not difference between groups 1 and 2 also groups 1 and 4 also groups 2 and 4 also groups 2and 4 also groups 3 and 4 inversely (P>0.05).Therefore, it can claim that there is significant difference between group 2 and groups 1 and 2 that group 3 has used of participative evaluation and groups 1 has applied weekly achievement tests and 2 has applied portfolio.But weekly achievement tests, portfolio and contribution to self and other evaluation has not significant difference.http://www.ispacs.com/journals/metr/2017/metr-00059/International Scientific Publications and Consulting Services

Hypothesis two
There is a significant difference between the methods with a better participatory role for students and the ones without.The results of Levene's test reveals that data variance in pretest, post test scores differences is equal (P>0.05).The results of Independent Samples T-test show that there is a meaningful difference between the mean of pretest, post test scores differences of methods with a better participatory role for students (participative evaluation and self-other evaluation) and methods without a better participatory role for students(weekly tests and portfolio) (P<0.05).

Conclusion
As educational evaluation observes all the attempts students make during an educational course, and grants admission to a higher level, and the fact that the potential shortcomings of the education process are identified by the educational evaluation, it is necessary to adjust educational evaluation with scientific criteria and new evaluation methodologies.Nowadays, in educational centers, evaluation is done habitually by copying a set of questions and assigning a quantity to the results which determines if a learner is entitled to go to the next level or not while according to the philosophy of educational evaluation, more attention needs to be paid to the results of evaluation.Deciding if a student can be admitted to a higher level is just one of the applications for which the results of evaluation is used.The results could also be used to determine the quality of education during the course and the position of each learner in the class in a healthy competitive environment and comparing this with that of the previous course, and informing each learner of his weak and strong points.In fact, learners are tested to find out how well they have done.It is the teacher's duty to make their students aware of their learning and how well they are doing.The teacher can analyze the results of the evaluation and inform the learner of their shortcomings and improvement which could lead to better learning.As one's awareness of their learning could enhance learning.Now, if teachers get to know that there are different applicable methods for continuous evaluation of their learners which contribute differently to their students' improvement, they could use any of these methods according to their situation.Also, if teachers take advantage of their students' participation in the analysis of the results and the evaluation of their own learning in team work, http://www.ispacs.com/journals/metr/2017/metr-00059/International Scientific Publications and Consulting Services they could include a series of strong control agents in education and evaluation which will give rise to a set of activities to enhance learning.It seems that new evaluation methods could be applied only when policy makers and authorities get to know the significance and benefits of such methods and make plans and arrangements to supply teachers with the time and necessary equipment.During the present study, there was hardly enough time and necessary equipment to carry out the evaluations as certain lessons were expected to be taught.
).In addition this group shows a lower std compared to other groups that indicate a lower data variance than other groups (2.90).Moreover, the average pre-test, post-test scores difference in other groups show that http://www.ispacs.com/journals/metr/2017/metr-00059/International Scientific Publications and Consulting Services group 4; participating student in self and other evaluation, takes the second level (4.48), group 1; weekly tests (3.62) takes the third level, and group2; portfolio (3.33), take the last level (see table 1). http://www.ispacs.com/journals/metr/2017/metr-00059/

Table 4 :
Scheffe test for four groups

Table 6 :
Group Statistics

Table 7 :
the results of the T-test of two independent sample groups, studying the difference between groups with low participation of the students (weekly tests and portfolio), and groups with high participation of the students (participative evaluation and self-other evaluation)