An Evaluation of Teaching of Science in English in a Rural School in Sabah

1.0 Introduction The multiple educational evaluation models and definitions developed by evaluation theorists reflect the diversity of ideas and approaches towards educational evaluation. The diverse meanings and definitions of the evaluation concept includes viewing evaluation as an assessment of the worth or merit of some educational objects (Stufflebeam, 2000a, 2000b; Trochim, 2006); assessment of the achievement of objectives which is also known as the Tylerian view of evaluation (Madaus & Stufflebeam, 2000); and proving the success or failure of a programme. According to Madaus and Stufflebeam (2000) these are the conventional views of evaluation. As the field of evaluation continued to develop, Cronbach (1963) pointed out that the evaluation process should be focused on gathering and reporting information that could help guide decision-making in an educational programme and curriculum development. Nonetheless, while the models differ in many of their details, the decision to choose an evaluation model depends on a few important factors such as the evaluation questions, the issues that must be addressed, and the available resources (Madaus & Kellaghan, 2000). This paper begins with clarifying the position of curriculum evaluation in the curriculum development model (Oliva, 1992). Curriculum process 2 evaluation focuses on instructional activities in the teaching and learning process. A study on the teaching and learning of Science in English (TeSME) programme was conducted in year 2005. In this evaluation study, the process dimension of the CIPP (Stufflebeam, 2000) forms the basic framework. The process-improvement evaluation aims to detect strengths and weaknesses in the instructional process and to suggest constructive feedback about how things might be improved. Curriculum evaluation is seen as a sub model and the final component in the curriculum process in Razali Arof's (1991) and Oliva's (1992) curriculum development model. Oliva's (1992) curriculum model conceptualised four main components – curriculum goals, curriculum objectives, organisation and implementation of the curriculum, and evaluation of the curriculum. Figure 1 shows the feedback line in which information obtained in the evaluation component would provide useful data for each of the components of the Curriculum Model. III IV V XII Figure 1: Curriculum model with all feedback lines (Oliva, 1992: 478) Oliva (1992) points out that to consider students' achievement in their cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning as the effectiveness of the curriculum is not accurate. This is because, according to Oliva (1992), Curriculum goals Curriculum objectives Organisation and implementation of the curriculum Evaluation of the curriculum 3 …