Alahakoon, N.Karunaratne, S.2024-09-302024-09-302013-07-04Peradeniya University Research Sessions PURSE - 2012, Book of Abstracts, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, Vol. 17, July. 4. 2012 pp. 50978955589164613914111https://ir.lib.pdn.ac.lk/handle/20.500.14444/1344The report of the Ministry of Education in 2008, on School-Based Assessment (SBA) has emphasized that in the Sri Lankan school system of education, overall implementation and performance of SBA has not reached up to its expected level. Although SBA is an assessment which is embedded in the teaching and learning process, teachers use SBA as an alternative way of testing their students at the end of the units. This study is designed to practice SBA in the teaching and learning process of mathematics. A questionnaire was administered to 62 teachers of mathematics in the Gampola Education Zone to explore the existing situation on SBA. Identifying the barriers, through the responses of teachers in implementing SBA, a unit plan was designed for the unit, ‘Area of plane figures’ in tenth grade mathematics. This unit consisted of five lessons. Though various SBA modalities have been introduced to the system by the Ministry of Education, it has been established as a final test based on the tools of short written tests and assignments. Because of this the researcher developed the unit plan including five SBA modalities as short written test, exploration, group activities, open book test and concept map to overcome the misinterpretation of SBA. The unit plan was implemented in two schools, 1AB and 1C in the Gampola Education Zone which have two parallel grade 10 classes, considering one as the experimental group and the other as the control group. In these two schools the same teachers taught the two parallel classes. Before implementing the designed unit plan to the experimental group, the same teacher was engaged in teaching the same lesson in his / her own way to the control group. The two classes were observed while the lessons were taught. Finally both classes were given the same test and thereafter analysed. The study revealed that the students were more enthusiastic and active when learning with a designed unit plan that included various SBA modalities. The teachers were able to accomplish an increase in the level of achievement of students in the mathematics unit ‘Area of plane figures’ through proper implementation of SBA. Conceptual changes about SBA of teachers who implemented the unit plan were identified through the interviews. It is an obvious fact that circulars and instructions issued on SBA do not support uplifting of the conceptual understanding of teachers about SBA. It will be more effective, if small groups of teachers get together and plan a unit with various SBA modalities through discussions and implement them to the students of their classrooms than conducting traditional workshops based on SBA. This study is beneficial to education authorities to form a conceptual framework for their teacher training programmes based on SBA.enEducationSchool-Based Assessment Assessment modalitiesMathematics classTeachingArticle