Implementation Of Alternative Assessment In Tanzania:The Current Practices Of Secondary Schools Biology Teachers In Ilala Municipality

Alternative assessment entails a range of assessment methods including the use of projects,extended essays,portfolio,presentations,exhibition,experiments,field work,which can provide solutions for the problems of traditional assessment based on paper and pencil.Further,alternative assessments allow students to show what they can do rather than to catch them out with what they do not know.The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate implementation of alternative assessment in Tanzania for current practices of secondary schools biology teachers in Ilala municipality.The survey questionnaires,interview and observation approaches have been used for data collection.The study employed purposeful sampling,simple random sampling and stratified sampling to select 36 Biology teachers,18Academic teachers and 144 students.The findings from the analysis revealed a general consensus among teachers on the top down approach to the implementation of alternative assessment.The perceptions of all teachers indicated that they continue to have feelings of uncertainty in the implementation of alternative assessment in the teaching and learning of biology in ordinary level secondary schools.Teachers expressed concerns about insufficient time for meeting the demands of the reform.Teachers were critical,finding several factors that militated against implementation.The recommendations and further research areas have been mentioned.