DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2015.v03i08.003

Pages: 1280-1286

Assessment is the heart of effective teaching and learning. Teachers therefore must know why they are assessing, what they are assessing, how they are assessing, how to create quality assessment for that particular context and how to communicate results effectively. A qualitative naturalistic inquiry was used to elicit data from teachers, college lecturers and school heads. Two focus groups of teachers and one focus group of lecturers’ were conducted to collect data from participants. Each focus group had eight participants. To triangulate data from focus groups ten teachers, five head teachers and five college lecturers were individually interviewed until data reached a saturation point. All participants were selected through purposive sampling. Data from focus groups and in-depth interviews were thematically analysed in line with the qualitative research approaches. The study has revealed that, indeed there is a missing link between teacher education and teacher assessment practices in the Primary schools in Gweru District schools. This was attributed to teachers colleges concentrating on theory of education at the detriment of classroom assessment theory and practice. It also emerged from the study that teachers colleges gave a cursory approach to classroom assessment leading to a production of teachers with limited competences in assessment .This was exacerbated by some lecturers lack of assessment skills, whose experience was based on how they were assessed while they were in school. Furthermore schools were said to do very little in so far as staff developing teachers on assessment was concerned and yet most teachers and lecturers acknowledged that assessment was a grey area...............