The primary purpose of the study was to determine the extent to which the public examination test items in statistics reflect the syllabus aims and assessment objectives. In addition to this, the nature of responses of a group of final year secondary school students, to selected non-routine and routine items in statistics was also studied. The aims of the syllabus and assessment objectives as well as the suggested methodologies place emphasis on problem solving skills, discovery learning and application of learned concepts in real life situation where as examination items do not reflect these objectives. Students' responses to non-routine tasks too confirm their inability to handle anything that is not routine. Currently, certification is based on one shot examination, where items are routine in nature, which implies that teaching is geared towards preparing the students for the public examination. Certification, instead of depending on just one external examination, should move towards incorporating continuous assessment component thereby providing the opportunity to use projects and open - ended tasks as part of teaching and learning.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education