Students face various challenges when they enter primary school. Checking for understanding and knowledge assessment play a central role in their development and progress. They are closely related to both learning and teaching and have a decisive influence on lessons.
Knowledge assessment is an integral part of teaching and teachers must pay careful attention to it. It allows them to not only obtain information about a student’s achieved level of knowledge but also evaluate their own work as teachers and ascertain to what extent they have succeeded in realizing certain learning goals. Assessment also affects student motivation, self-image and decisions about the future, which is why any assessment of knowledge must be credible and of high quality. Teachers most often design a test to assess knowledge and in doing so must pay attention to several factors. First, they must determine the learning objectives, knowledge standards and learning content, taking into account their taxonomic levels. The selected learning objectives will then determine the types of tasks used to test them, as different types of tasks make it possible to assess knowledge at different taxonomic levels. All of these characteristics were the starting points of our analysis of the tests included in the study sample.
The research in the master’s thesis focuses on the quality of the sample tests on select topics from 3rd grade primary school arithmetic as well as on analysing how teachers approach designing a test. As part of the research, existing tests that had already been completed by students were analysed using parameters such as learning objectives, knowledge standards, taxonomy levels, task types and the appropriateness of the mathematical, linguistic, design and allotted time components. The questionnaire focused on key questions related to developing and designing a test: What do teachers most often use to help them design tests? Which knowledge taxonomies do they use? Which types of tasks do they choose for individual topics? How do they formulate the criteria? What kind of problems do they encounter when designing tests? What do they attribute students’ failure to and how do assessment results affect their teaching?
The results of the test analysis show that all the tests are consistent with the mathematics curriculum and adequately test the learning objectives, which ensures their validity. The ratio between minimum and core knowledge standards is balanced in most of the tests, although minor deviations were detected in some cases. When analysing the taxonomic levels, only two tests corresponded to the recommended ratio between basic, procedural and problem-solving knowledge, while the rest showed marked deviations. Specific task types are often disproportionately represented. In addition, the analysis shows occasional errors in mathematical terminology, design flaws and inconsistencies in the allotted time.
The analysis of the questionnaire reveals that when preparing tests, teachers most often turn to textbooks and workbooks, and less often rely on online resources and digital tools, such as the RIC e-bank of assignments. Most teachers use Bloom’s taxonomy when designing tasks, but some of the teachers are not familiar with any taxonomies. When determining the evaluation criteria, most teachers collaborate with their co-teachers, while a smaller percentage formulates the criteria independently. The most common challenges teachers face are selecting appropriate tasks, setting learning objectives and incorporating mathematical terminology, which can affect test quality and execution.
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