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The big data: primary school teachers’ knowledge of techniques for assessment of pupils academic progress in South Eastern Nigeria

The study focused on primary school teachers’ knowledge of techniques for assessment of pupils’ academic progress using big data. It was premised on the increasing knowledge and use of modern technology in virtually every area of human endeavor which demands that everyone who deals with the collection, analysis, storage and retrieval of information on people’s activities should be well informed of the knowledge of processing and application of software to achieve expected results in using big data when wider coverage is required. Descriptive expo facto design was adopted in the study. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The population of the study comprised all teachers in the public primary schools in Anambra State, South Eastern Nigeria. 400 hundred respondents selected from eight educational zones within the state constituted the sample. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire entitled: “Primary School Teachers Knowledge on Techniques and Use of Big Data” (PSTKTUBD) developed by the researchers    It was a 21-item instrument with a 4-point rating scale. 400 copies of the instrument were administered and all were retrieved. Mean scores and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while t-test statistical tool was used for the testing of hypotheses. Results from the study revealed that primary school teachers in Anambra state Nigeria have no basic knowledge and use of computer appliances for the assessment of pupils’ academic progress report.  Findings also showed that majority of teachers (79%) in primary schools do not own computer systems, are not ICT friendly, do not have digital data base of their pupils’ and do not use the computer to analyze data on pupils’ academic activities and progress. It was further revealed that public primary schools lack ICT facilities, hence talking about big data remained a flight of the imagination. Results from the study also revealed that primary school teachers in the state have no basic knowledge of big data, its ‘analytics tools and techniques for assessment of pupils’ academic progress. The findings have implications on assessment in the primary school and teacher preparation programmers.  Based on the results, it was recommended, amongst others, that every teacher should own a laptop and be ICT complaint, government should retrain teachers regularly on ICT skills and use of the internet services for teaching and learning. Furthermore, Teacher Education curriculum should be revised and instructional resources for preparing teachers in the digital age be installed.

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