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The purpose of this study was to look into the factors that influence mathematics teacher educators' formative assessment practices. This paper took a qualitative case study research design approach with six educators teaching mathematics in three teacher Colleges of Education in Ghana. The exploration focused on factors that hinders teacher educators use of formative assessment practices. Data were generated through the administration of semi-structured interviews and lesson observations. The qualitative data was analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings revealed that major factors which limit teacher educators formative assessment practices were: large class size, time, lack of transparency in assessment, and internal and external summative assessment issues. The factors limiting teacher educators' use of formative assessment (FA) discussed in this study are beneficial for teacher college administration in addressing the issues and educators in assisting pre-service teachers in eliminating these factors during their training and after passing out from the college of education to the teaching field. Based on the findings, it is recommended that a large scale study is conducted on factors that affect teachers formative assessment practices and the effect on students mathematics learning.

An ideal group size is hard to obtain in small group settings; hence there are groups with more members than others. The purpose of the study was to find out whether group size has any effects on students' mathematics achievement in small group settings. Two third year classes of the 2011/2012 academic year were selected from two schools in the Central Region of Ghana for the study. The two classes constituted the control and experimental groups respectively and consisted of 50 students in the control group and 47 in the experimental group. The experimental group was subdivided into 12 groups made up of groups of 3 members, groups of 4 members and groups of 5 members using stratified and simple random sampling. The students' pre- and post-test scores served as the data for the study. The results of the study showed no significant difference in the mean scores of the three subgroups of the experimental group.

This article offers an analysis of preservice mathematics teachers' knowledge and understanding of assessment literacy. We draw from Abell and Siegel's (2011) notion of assessment literacy to explain the salient component of assessment literacy among the preservice teachers who participated in this study. Semi-structured and group interviews were used to generate data from three second-year preservice teachers enrolled in a Diploma in Education program. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. While the findings revealed that preservice teachers perceive assessment as an ongoing process aimed at gathering information about students' learning, their knowledge is grounded more on summative assessment. Furthermore, it was noted that preservice teachers view assessment as generic and not specific to mathematics teaching. In terms of conducting assessments, preservice teachers concede that time aligns with purpose and that administering assessments is solely the instructor's responsibility. Based on the findings, we concluded that preservice mathematics teachers have limited knowledge and understanding of assessment literacy. Thus, it is recommended that teacher educators pay particular attention to the evolution of preservice mathematics teachers' conception of assessment literacy. It is also recommended that preservice mathematics teachers' classroom assessment practices be investigated to ascertain how their assessment knowledge informs their classroom practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study was designed to investigate the efficacy of activity-based instruction on learners' achievement in geometry. The subjects of this study consisted 83 Grade 11 high school learners from two senior high schools, purposely selected from two towns in the Northern part of Ghana. The study adopts an experimental design involving on a pre-test and posttest control design. The experimental group was facilitated using activity-based instruction while the control group was taught using the traditional 'talk and chalk' teaching approach. The instruments used for data generation were geometric achievement pretest and posttest. The test was based on two geometric concepts (perimeter and area). Learners' achievements on the posttest were analysed using an independent t-test. The study showed a significant difference in the posttest geometric achievements for learners in favour of those facilitated using the activity-based method of instruction. Thus, the use of activity-based instruction proved to be a very effective and promising technique to teach geometric concepts. The study also revealed that there was no significant difference in the academic achievement of male and female learners exposed to activity-based teaching. Based on the findings, it is recommended that mathematics teachers should employ activity-based method to facilitate the teaching and learning of geometric concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]