Enhancing student performance: Linking the geography curriculum, instruction, and assessment in the English-speaking Caribbean

In a 21st century knowledge society individuals are expected to use their knowledge and skills to think critically, problem solve, make decisions, comprehend new ideas, communicate, and collaborate effectively with others. Helping students achieve this level of performance is no easy task and it brings into focus the fact that the effectiveness of any education system rests on the systemic coordination or alignment of three crucial components: curriculum, instruction and assessment (referred to as the CIA). These components must work in concert to facilitate and enhance student performance. However, educational reform typically targets these components in isolation, often treating only one component, rather than the system as a whole.;The misalignment of these components can adversely affect student performance in any discipline. When the CIA components are out of alignment, it is difficult to evaluate student and system performance and achieve improvement in an educational system. Therefore, using geography education in Trinidad & Tobago as a case study, this study examined the nature of the alignment among the CIA components in the advanced geography system in the English- Speaking Caribbean and the extent to which the alignment may be affecting student performance. The study sought to determine the possible sources and causes of misalignment, the challenges to achieving alignment, and ways of achieving greater coordination among the CIA components of the system. The methodology employed in the study involved the use of classroom observations, interviews, and the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum Alignment Model which uses content analyses and surveys.;The results showed that there were varying degrees of alignment among the components. There was acceptable alignment (Alignment Index ≥ 0.25) between the curriculum and assessment. However, the alignment between curriculum and instruction or assessment and instruction was poor (Alignment Index ≤ 0.12). The baseline threshold for acceptable alignment was 0.25. The misalignment between the curriculum and assessment stemmed from the fact that there were items tested in the assessment that were not identified in the examination syllabus. In terms of the misalignment between the curriculum/assessment and instruction, teachers were misallocating their teaching time and efforts; spending too much time teaching the skills and practices of the discipline rather than the core content areas and they were spending too much time teaching the content at the lower order cognitive level of recall. In addition, while research promotes student-centered approaches, cooperative learning, dialogic discourse, open informal questioning and discursive forms of writing, teachers still primarily use teacher-centered approaches, individualize instruction, monologic discourse and closed recall questions. The teachers' instructional practices are not affording students the opportunity to acquire and display their knowledge at the higher levels of cognition.;The cause of the misalignment was attributed to a vague, overloaded syllabus and limited teaching time; vague evaluative criteria and feedback from the Examination Council; inadequate and insufficient teacher training and professional development; a lack of administrative support and mentorship for inexperienced teachers; and teacher frustration. Subsequently, the study offers a number of evidence based recommendations that range from the modification and refinement of the geography CIA triad to professional development programs and the design of interventions that can advance the teaching and learning of the discipline. Though the study is undertaken in a specific context, the educational issues addressed in the study transcend time, scale, and geographic boundaries and the results can inform the decision-making and practices of educators and education policy-makers everywhere.