The importance of learning mathematics and using it in daily life is obvious.
On the other hand, the results from many national and international assessment
studies show that the achievement of Turkish students are very far away from the
bare minimum performance. However, in the measurement and evaluation
procedures of both primary and secondary educational system, there is a lack of
identification of this &ldquo / bare minimum&rdquo / or qualitative and clear descriptors for
performance levels. A great importance is dedicated to the national exam results
expressed in percentage terms of the correct responses, or in total score points in
weighted scale scores, but there is still no system of presenting to students their
scores with descriptions of these scores in terms of levels of skills that they did or did
not reach.
Therefore, this study has aimed to identify the knowledge and skills required
for different performance levels defined by setting cut points for the results of a 4th
grade mathematics achievement test. The test was conducted in 2007-2008
academic year with 269 fourth grade students in eight different private primary
schools in Istanbul. Then, in 2008-2009 academic year, a group of ten teachers of
mathematics and assessment experts took part in the study for identifying the
performance level descriptors for 4th grade mathematics performance. Two different
methods of standard setting were used. One of the methods was based on the oneparameter
model of Item Response Theory (IRT) and mostly named as Bookmark
Method. The method depended on the statistical identification of the cut points on
the scale for performance levels such as Below Basic, Basic, Proficient, and
Advanced. The other method was a judgmental method which required the
participant teachers to classify the item as carrying the characteristics of
performance levels, again, as Below Basic, Basic, Proficient, and Advanced.
The study revealed that the item mappings from two methods were congruent
to each other. There was a hierarchical ordering in terms of skills among the
performance levels. Also, the results demonstrated that understanding and
computation skills were heavily characteristics of Below Basic and Basic levels,
whereas, problem solving skill was reached by the students of Proficient and
Advanced levels.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12611219/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 September 2009 |
| Creators | Secil, Selcen Ozkaya |
| Contributors | Berberoglu, Giray |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Ph.D. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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