In the spring term of 2013, national tests were conducted in social sciences for the first time in the Swedish sixth grade. The tests fell under criticism from various outlets associated with education which eventually resulted in the removal of these new national tests. However, as of 2016 it has been decided that the same institutions responsible for the national tests are to develop voluntary assessment support material in these subjects, which will be available nationwide in 2017, essentially replacing the tests.    The idea for this essay was born out of a need to investigate to what extent the different types of knowledge and abilities of Lgr 11, the Swedish curriculum, correspond to the new national tests, since such research has yet to be done for the sixth grade version of the tests. Out of constraints related to time and size, we chose to limit ourselves to two of the four subjects in social sciences, namely history and religion.    Using text analysis as method and Bloom’s revised taxonomy as an analysis model to study the alignment between the national tests and the curriculum, we’ve endeavoured to answer the following questions: To what extent are the different types of knowledge and abilities tested in the national tests in history and religion for grade six? How well do the national tests in history and religion for grade six and the knowledge requirements of Lgr 11 correspond in regard to which types of knowledge and abilities are tested and the extent of these? The results showed that the national tests and the knowledge requirements of the Swedish curriculum by and large share a high level of alignment. However, the amount of test questions corresponding to each knowledge requirement varies greatly, creating a possible gap for teachers to fill should they use the forthcoming assessment support material in their work.

This study explores the phenomenon of computational thinking indicated by the use of Bloom's taxonomy's cognitive domain verbs in the Scratch community, the online, collaborative environment for the Scratch Visual Programming Language (VPL). A corpus of 660,984 words from three Scratch community sub-forums provide the data for this study. By semantically aligning cognitive domain verbs of Bloom's revised taxonomy to computational thinking (CT) dimensions, the occurrences of the verbs in Scratch community sub-forums are used to indicate instances of computational thinking. The methodology utilizes qualitative coding and analysis with R® and RStudio®. The findings show language attributes such as expressions of imagination, sharing of creative details, collaborative development ideas, teaching, modeling, innovating, solutions focused, and technical support to be indicative of computational thinking and CT dimensions. The computational thinking dimension referred to as computational perspectives occurs most frequently within Scratch community participant discourse. The environmental factors found to contribute to computational thinking and the CT dimensions are supporting tools, personalized learning, supportive organizational culture, social learning, and organizational support. Common among the three computational dimensions is the contributing environmental factor described as supportive organizational culture, with the computational perspectives dimension prevailing among the corpora. The characteristics of computational perspectives and supportive organizational culture suggest a desire for human connection in the attainment of technological skills and knowledge.

During the spring term of 2013, national exams were conducted for the first time in the Swedish schools for 6th graders. The exams involving the science subjects were however not used as a basis for the student’s grades, but were instead used as trial exams. It did however not take long for criticism to befall upon the notion of national exams. In 2014, The teacher association and Sweden’s student council proposed for the tests to be voluntary for the grades 6 to 9. They felt that the tests were too many and that they had a negative effect on both students and teachers alike. The government decided two years later, 2016, that the national exams should be voluntary. The goal of this essay is to further raise the understanding of the 6th grade biology exam. This examination will present to what extent the biology exam tests the knowledge and skill of the students by comparing the exam against the requirements listed in Lgr 11. In order to accomplish this, text analysis will be used as the method, and Blooms revised taxonomy will be used as the analytical model. With this as a base, two questions have been raised. To what extent is the knowledge and skills tested in the national exams for the 6th grade? How well does the national exam corresponds to the requirements stated in Lgr 11 regarding the knowledge and skills that should be tested in the exams, as well as the extent of these. The conclusion shows a high consistency between the requirements stated in Lgr 11 and the national biology exams. However, not all knowledge and skills were being tested equally. The number of questions for each different subject varied. The conclusion also gives biology 6th grade teachers the possibility to make up for the lack of questions in the areas that are currently lacking.

Denna uppsats handlar om vilka olika kunskapsformer som testas i skriftliga prov i geografi på gymnasiet och om hur detta förhåller sig till betygskriterierna. För att besvara detta har tio geografilärares prov analyserats med hjälp av Blooms reviderade taxonomi. Tidigare forskning visar att prov i SO-ämnen nästan enbart testar minneskunskaper. Denna studie bekräftar delvis detta då de analyserade proven domineras av frågor som testar att minnas. Samtidigt finns det en variation i vilka kunskapsformer som testas. Även om lärarna främst testar att minnas fakta- och begreppskunskap, testar också andra kunskapsformer, om än i varierande grad. Det handlar främst om uppgifter som testar att förstå fakta- och begreppskunskap, men även att tillämpa, analysera och värdera begreppskunskap testas, liksom att tillämpa procedurkunskap.   Det finns en viss överensstämmelse mellan lärarnas prov och betygskriterierna, men en tydlig skillnad är att lärarna i studien i högre utsträckning testar att minnas än vad som uttrycks i betygskriterierna. Detta gäller särskilt för de högre betygen. Det är inte heller alla lärare som testar de högre kognitiva processerna, som att tillämpa, analysera och värdera, vilka uttrycks för de högre betygen. Detta innebär en variation mellan lärarna i vad deras prov testar och också att validiteten i proven varierar. En del lärares prov testar ganska väl kunskaper motsvarande betygskriterierna medan andras gör det i mindre grad. Eftersom prov används som underlag för betygsättningen innebär det också att eleverna bedöms på olika grunder.   Det kan finnas olika förklaringar till betoningen på minnesfrågor i proven. Tidigare forskning pekar på svårigheter att tolka kriterierna eller på traditionen. En annan förklaring är bristen på tid, lärarna behöver tid för att utforma prov med mer komplexa frågor och för att rätta dem.

Föreliggande studie analyserar muntliga aktiviteter i elevböckerna och lärarhandledningarna tillhörande läromedlet ABC-klubben. Läromedlet analyseras utifrån ett kognitivt perspektiv med hjälp av Blooms reviderade taxonomi, vilket även utgör studiens teoretiska referensram. Taxonomin synliggör vilka kognitiva processer och kunskapsdimensioner aktiviteterna erbjuder eleverna att nå. Resultatet av analysen jämförs med lärarnas uppfattning om de muntliga aktiviteterna som läromedlet erbjuder. Det granskade läromedlet valdes ut efter att verksamma lärare på lågstadiet besvarat en enkät om vilket läromedel de använder i svenskundervisningen. Enkäten innehöll också frågor där lärarna bland annat svarade på i vilken utsträckning de anser att läromedlet bidrar till elevernas utveckling av de muntliga förmågorna. Resultatet av läromedelsanalysen visar att antalet muntliga aktiviteter är begränsade. Det visar också att aktiviteterna inte erbjuder eleverna att utveckla den högsta nivån av kunskapsdimensioner och i endast en liten utsträckning den högsta nivån av kognitiva processer. Lärarna upplever dock att läromedlet bidrar till att eleverna utvecklar förmågorna att tala, lyssna och samtala. Studiens slutsats är att eleverna borde få fler möjligheter att nå högre kognitiva processer och kunskapsdimensioner gällande muntlighet. Det kräver att muntliga aktiviteter får större plats i läromedlet.