Reflections on the influence of the group setup on the assessment interview

All challenges associated with the group interview assessment format could unfortunately not be eliminated. Some learners were getting restless and disruptive while waiting for others to answer individualised questions. Learners could also hear each other’s answers and in some cases a learner would laugh at another. In general I found that the learners’ behaviour and self-control were better during the second round of interviews.

Because one learner was absent once when the interviews were conducted one of the SEAL interviews was conducted individually. This took 25 minutes to complete. The group interviews were thus much more economical time wise. The average duration of the first round of SEAL interviews (August 2014) was 39 minutes per four learners compared to 25 minutes on average for the second round (November 2014). The average duration of the first round of CPV interviews per four learner was 36 minutes compared to 31 minutes on average for the second round. In my journal and reflection I attributed the shorter interview times for the second round to the following factors:

- Changes were made to the initial interview setup - I was more familiar with the interview material

- The learners were more relaxed and needed less prompting - The learners were more familiar with the interview material - The learners could solve various problems faster than before - Learners were accustomed to explaining their strategies - Learners were more familiar with the vocabulary used

- I was familiar with more of the isiXhosa words used as part of their answers

- It was not necessary to repeat all instructions in isiXhosa for all groups

56 Apart from the obvious advantage of time, an element of competition seemingly enhanced learning experiences during interviews. For example, during the first CPV interviews learners had to write down the total number of dots on 10 strips. A few learners started out by counting in ones. Others in the same group were counting the number of strips in tens. The moment they shouted “finished!” the others realized that there was an easier way of doing things and figured out that they should count in tens too. The competition element similarly emerged during the second round of interviews when learners, now familiar with ten dot strips, did not count in ones or tens at all and merely wrote down 20 and added 10 to the previous answer every time to be able to finish first.

Another example of how learners learnt from one another during the interview assessments is the following: While asking learners about the strategy used to add the covered counters 9 and 6 (SEAL, 1.b, Interview II), the responses were recorded as follows on the researcher’s sheet (Fig. 17):

Fig.17: A response schedule example for SEAL (Question 1.b) Addition of covered counters

The first learner said he counted on his fingers, the second used a known fact (9 + 5 = 14; so 9 + 6 = 14 + 1). The third learner described a strategy, jump to the ten, introduced during recovery, but not used spontaneously by any of the learners before. He said “9 + 1 = 10; 10 + 5 = 15”. Learner 4 could hear this explanation and then copied the strategy by saying “9 + 1 = 10 ‘kushiyeka’ (leaves) 5. 15”. Both used the same strategy to solve the next problem as well. It is possible that Learner 4 used a peer’s answer as a learning opportunity for himself.

57 It looked like the Interview situation was also a learning opportunity for Themba.

In SEAL, 4.a (Interview II) he described his strategy for 14 + 10 as: 4 + 0 = 4

1 + 1 = 2

24 (the correct answer)

He did not “echo” the quantity underlying the digits (Graven et al., 2013, p.138). For the next question 4.b Zola did the following:

42 + 23 20 + 40 = 60 2 + 3 = 5 60 + 5 = 65

I purposefully repeated Zola’s correct phrasing of place value (i.e. “twenty plus forty” rather than “two plus four”). Themba was listening to her explanation and then began phrasing his calculations as follows:

33 + 25 30 + 20 = 50 3 + 5 = 8 50 + 8 = 58

Thus in subsequent calculations he noted the quantity underlying the tens and ones and used this in the phrasing of his method.

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4.5

Post assessment considerations informing recovery intervention

After the completion of the assessment interviews I reflected on the way ahead and the most appropriate way to do recovery with a class of 23 learners and simultaneously keep track of the individual progress and the class’s development. I found an online generated mind map useful to structure my thoughts and planning. (See Appendix G for a copy of the mind map). Additionally it provided a good way to share considerations and key issues that I had identified as needing attention and discussion with my supervisor.

4.5.1 Generating summaries of individual learner stages and levels from interviews A key challenge following the interviews was to find a manageable way to determine the SEAL stage and CPV level of every learner based on my recording of learner responses in the interviews, the video recordings and the answer sheets completed by learners. After revisiting the criteria set out in Wright et al. (2006) I compiled a shortened LFIN profile checklist for every learner with columns for recording levels after the first and second interview assessments respectively. Using the assessment response schedule, the learners’ answer sheets and the video recordings of the assessment, I could complete a summary sheet LFIN profile for every learner. The summary sheet for both interview assessments is provided below (as well as in Appendix D, as mentioned in Chapter 3):

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LFIN profile: SEAL and Conceptual Place Value (Wright et al., 2006)

Learner: ______________________________________ DoB ______________ Summary Date Date SEAL Stage CPV Level Date Date SEAL STAGES

Stage 0 – Emergent counting (p. 22)