Evaluating students’ performance in the 10 bagless days program: Validation of a suggested framework

Abstract

The Guidelines for 10 Bagless Days in school clearly specified that the program aims to provide students with experiential learning through exposure to different vocations connected with their culture and community. The central focus is to reduce the curriculum load and heavy reliance on examinations. Keeping these purposes in view, it is necessary to structure the linkage of objective, content, pedagogy, and evaluation in such a way that makes learning enjoyable. The present paper proposes a framework for evaluating students’ performance in the 10-bagless-days program. The framework of evaluation has been validated by a small-scale try-out. The activity for the 10 bagless days program was “A Day's Visit to Nagaland State Museum”. Presentation, Field trip, Demonstration, and Group discussion were used as a pedagogy of teaching and learning. 16 samples, including students of Class 6 to Class 8 from the middle stage school, were selected purposively as the sample of the study. A PowerPoint presentation, a movie presentation, and a field trip to the Nagaland State Museum were used to deliver the content. Predominantly, demonstration and group discussion were the pedagogical methods. The evaluation of learning outcomes was done by using a field test questionnaire, portfolio and rubrics of assessment. The tools were developed by the researcher and validated by 90 experts chosen purposively. The outcome is the development of a conceptual framework to evaluate students’ performance in the 10 bagless days program.