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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:sh-31644 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Borgelind, Andreas, Mekhelif, Bassel |
| Publisher | Södertörns högskola, Lärarutbildningen, Södertörns högskola, Lärarutbildningen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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