Do We Have To Give Standardized Tests of Teacher Content Knowledge? (original) (raw)
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As part of the effort to equip preservice mathematics teachers with the necessary secondary school mathematics content that they would need to deliver mathematics lessons, a School Mathematics Mastery Test was implemented for all preservice mathematics teachers in the Postgraduate Diploma in Education programme in the National Institute of Education. This paper describes the rationale and the different phases in the implementation of this test, sample test questions, and the performance of the preservice teachers in the different batches since its implementation. The implication of the implementation of this mathematics content test and the future direction of study on preservice teachers' mathematics content knowledge are also discussed.
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Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 2016
The No Child Left Behind Act requires that 95% of students in all public elementary and secondary schools are assessed in mathematics. Unfortunately, direct assessments of young students can be timely, costly, and challenging to administer. Therefore, policy makers have looked to indirect forms of assessment, such as teachers’ ratings of student skills, as a substitute. However, prekindergarten teachers’ ratings of students’ mathematical knowledge and skills are only correlated with direct assessments at the .50 level. Little is known about factors that influence accuracy in teacher ratings. In this study, we examine the influence of student and teacher characteristics on prekindergarten teachers’ ratings of students’ mathematical skills, controlling for direct assessment of these skills. Results indicate that students’ race/ethnicity and social competency, as well as teachers’ self-efficacy, are significantly related to prekindergarten teachers’ ratings of students’ mathematical sk...
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Students in an elementary teacher preparation program at a Hispanic Serving Institution in deep South Texas were asked to solve non-routine, problem-solving activities. They were administered five tasks during one semester, as part of a mathematics methods course. Two experienced raters assessed the student’s solutions to the non-routine problem-solving mathematical task using a mathematics understanding rubric that scores the Procedural Fluency (PF), Conceptual Understanding (CU), and Problem Solving/Strategic Competency (PS/SC). The research question was: What are the changes in procedural fluency, conceptual understanding, and problem solving-Strategic Competency in elementary preservice teachers after engaging in a series of non-routine problem-solving tasks? This is an ongoing research project, and preliminary results indicated that the teacher’s candidates made improvements in each of the three measurements, demonstrating that they are able to successfully use procedures, and ...