Supporting primary school teachers’ classroom assessment in mathematics education: effects on student achievement

Abstract

In a three-phase study, with a total of 40 third-grade teachers and their 830 students, teachers were supported to use classroom assessment techniques (CATs) to reveal their students' knowledge of number operations. In phase I, four teachers and 66 third-grade students participated in five monthly workshops in which CATs were co-designed and their use was discussed. In phase II, the first phase was replicated with four workshops with six different teachers and 148 third-grade students. In these two exploratory phases, we evaluated student achievement on a standardized national mathematics test in a pre-/posttest design and compared changes herein to changes in the national norm sample. In phase III, a control condition was added to the design to experimentally investigate the effect on student achievement with 30 teachers and 616 third-grade students. Teachers were randomly assigned to participate in 0, 1, 2, or 3 1-hour workshops. In all three phases, we found a significant increase in students' mathematics achievement scores on the standardized mathematics test. In phase III, the increase was significantly larger in the classes of teachers participating in three workshops than in classes with less workshops. Additionally, results from the analysis of classroom observations, feedback forms, and interviews indicate that teachers could easily integrate the CATs into their practice and could gather valuable information on their students. The results from the different phases of this study combined indicate that supporting teachers in their development and use of classroom assessment in mathematics may contribute to the improvement of students' mathematics achievement.

Insights Chinese Primary Mathematics Teachers Gained into their Students’ Learning from Using Classroom Assessment Techniques

“…These assessment techniques can be characterized as short, feasible, and for teachers, often well-known activities, which are fully embedded in teachers' teaching practice [16]. Also, several other researchers and educators [17][18][19][20][21] have investigated such assessment techniques.…”

“…To make the assessment even closer to the teaching at hand, Veldhuis and Van den Heuvel-Panhuizen [19] took the textbook used by the teachers as a starting point. They designed brief and targeted activities, called classroom assessment techniques (CATs), that teachers could use in their daily practice to reveal information about students' learning of a particular mathematical concept or skill.…”

“…Moreover, to make the CATs manageable for the teachers, they have a format that supports teachers to gather the students' information efficiently and makes the assessment feasible to carry out. The two main formats that Veldhuis and Van den Heuvel-Panhuizen [19] used for their CATs were red/green cards and worksheets. With the students responding to a question by holding up a red or a green card, the teacher can quickly gather information about the group as a whole.…”

“…Taking into account the promising international findings about the use of assessment techniques, we explored whether this approach to assessment could assist Chinese primary mathematics teachers in their assessment practice. Specifically, as a sequel to the studies carried out in the Netherlands [19] in which classroom assessment techniques (CATs) for primary mathematics education were developed and teachers were supported in using CATs, we investigated the use of CATs in China. Six third-grade mathematics teachers of two primary schools in Nanjing, China, participated in a pilot study [39].…”

How to Teach and Assess Whole Number Arithmetic: Some International Perspectives

“…488-495). Zhao, X., van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, M., & Veldhuis, M. (2015). Classroom assessment techniques to assess Chinese students' sense of division (pp.…”