Assessment and Feedback Practices in a Multigrade Context in South African Classrooms

Assessment and feedback are crucial elements in teaching and learning. This chapter reports on a small-scale research study conducted in one of the nine provinces of South Africa with the aim of exploring assessment and feedback practices in multigrade schools. Ten teachers who are teaching in a multigrade context, including four principals, were purposefully selected from four multigrade schools in Limpopo province. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, observations and document analysis, and were analysed manually using thematic analysis. The results of the study showed that assessment and feedback in a multigrade classroom are a challenge for teachers, exacerbated by the monograde curriculum that is not flexible to accommodate multigrade classrooms. Although acknowledging the importance of feedback and assessment, the participants delayed giving feedback and it was not specific to help learners in improving their work. It is recommended that multigrade teachers be supported and be given training in assessment and feedback in line with their teaching context. This study also found that multigrade teachers generally viewed peer assessment as challenging. While peer assessment could reduce the teachers’ tasks, teachers mentioned that learners tend to be very casual in how they deal with their peers’ work. Learners should also be trained to engage in peer assessment, which could give multigrade teachers time to focus on other assessment activities. The findings have important implications for developing multigrade teachers’ capacity in assessing and giving feedback to learners. Feedback needs to be targeted to the learning activity with specific criticisms and suggestions for improvement.