Analysing the impact of external examination on teaching and learning of English at the secondary level education

Abstract

This study assesses the influence of public examination on teaching and learning in higher-secondary education. The focus is on the subject of English, taught and assessed at grades 10 and 12 in Pakistan. Using the case of the BISE Sukkur, this study attempts to evaluate the English examination papers from the last 10 years in the first phase. Using Bloom’s learning taxonomy as a theoretical framework, each item in the question papers was analysed to determine, (1) the cognitive complexities required by the students to respond to the item, (2) the variety of topics and the frequency with which the items are repeated in the different years, and (3) the chapters from which these items were selected. In so doing, the study highlighted (a) the patterns in which the high and low order learning are prioritised in the examination papers, (b) the frequency and variety in which topics are repeated in different years, and (c) the frequency in which the chapters from the prescribed textbooks are priorities or ignored in the examinations. To determine the ways in which this examination pattern influences teaching and learning practices in the schools affiliated with the BISE Sukkur, teachers and students from selected schools were interviewed in the second phase of the study. The findings show a strong correlation between examination patterns and teaching practice and students’ learning approaches.

Keywords

• assessment
• public examination
• higher-secondary education
• high- and low-order learning
• bloom’s taxonomy