Research On Assessment Competence Of The Mathematic Teachers In The Primary School In China

Assessment competence,as an important part of teachers' professional competence,is related to the implementation of the concept of teaching reform in basic education courses,effectiveness detection of the reform and the goal of educating generations.Since the end of 20 th century,the American experts of education evaluation including Stiggins have already focused on teachers' assessment literacy,and stressed out the knowledge,competence,intention or attitude and ethical principles which teachers should hold for students' assessment.The professional standards(trial version)for the three stage teacher)was issued in 2012.They incorporated the concept of “stimulation and assessment” from the level of teacher professional competence and the “assessment” is added into teaching procedure based on four points,but the essence and connotation of assessment were not revealed.The research focuses on the assessment competence of primary mathematics teachers and adopts methods of content analysis,expert consultation and interviewing,which perform the assessment competence from aspects of its content,current and practice status,influential factors and development path.Firstly,the research compared professional teaching standard from 6 countries through the method of concept analysis.Consultation for 30 experts who are skilled in education evaluation and Scriven's statement of formative assessment and summative assessment help to establish the main content of teachers' assessment competence.Secondly,the questionnaire was made and revised based on the main content of teachers' assessment competence to investigate the current status of 444 mathematics teachers from J province.Data of the questionnaires was analyzed through SPSS21.0.Analysis of the 30 class teaching record from the five aspects of goal,subject,object,content and language in student assessment helps grasp the status of assessment competence of primary mathematics teachers.The status of the summative assessment for the sample teachers was understood by the analysis teachers' role and function in assessing students' homework and test paper.The main Dimensions include four aspects of test-paper source,assessment method,parent involvement,completion and revising method.Also,interview results on teachers and students help attribute the influential factors of teachers' assessment from the aspects of individual teacher and external environment.Finally,the development path of teachers' assessment competence was arranged from the level of self-improvement,school activities and external support.The research has summarized four conclusions.1.Define the content of “stimulation and assessment” of professional standard for primary teachers in details.From the aspect of assessment procedure,the teachers' assessment competence includes the competence of object confirming,plan designing,method and tool applying,students self-assessment guiding and peer mutual assessment,result handling and applying.This definition makes the “four aspects” in the professional standard for primary school teacher(trial version)into 5 first-level dimension and 30 second-level indicators.From the aspects of assessment method,teachers should have the competence of formative assessment and summative assessment.In particular,it is necessary to consider the assessment ethics(fairness,justice,and legitimacy)in the development process of teachers' assessment competence,although assessment ethics does not belong to assessment competence.2.The level of assessment competence of sample primary mathematics teachers is relatively high;comparing with the competence of formative assessment,the competence of summative is much higher.(1)The questionnaire data shows that the sample primary mathematics teachers believe that they have a higher overall level of assessment competence.Among them,the competence to determine assessment targets is the highest,and the competence to use assessment methods and tools is the lowest.The level of assessment competence of sample primary mathematics teachers is significantly different in terms of regional,teaching age and professional titles.In terms of region,there is a great difference between rural and urban primary mathematics teachers in the level of assessment competence.From the perspective of teaching age,there is a significant difference between the primary stage of professional development(0-10 years)and other teaching age groups in the level of assessment competence.After 11 years of teaching age,there is no significant difference in the assessment competence of sample teachers.And after 20 years,the mean of assessment competence level reaching the maximum.(2)In the formative assessment,about half of the sample teachers neglected the assessment goals and only paid attention to the realization of the teaching goals.Teachers only focus on themselves' assessment to students but pay less attention to students' self-assessment,which is contrary to the results of the questionnaire data.With further research,it is found that the contradicting phenomena were resulted from teachers' inconsistency between mind and speech and “Grandiose Aims but Puny Abilities”.In the assessment process,teachers paid more attention on "knowledge and skills" and few attentions on "processes and methods",let alone "emotional attitudes and values".There is a significant difference in the frequency of assessment between open class and regular class,and the use of formative assessment language presents a polarization trend.The summative assessment of students which mainly used the paper-pencil method is relatively fixed and stylized.The overall competence of the sample teachers' independent propositions needs to be improved.For the sample teachers,comparing with the competence of formative assessment which focusing on the process and methods,emotional attitudes and values,and students' literacy,teachers' competence of summative assessment to test the knowledge and skills is stronger,especially the measured competence that using the existing test questions and test papers(That is,the competence to use ready-made assessment tools);however,the competence to independently develop assessment tools is very weak.3.Compared with the professional attributes of mathematics subjects,teachers' outlook on students and other factors are more likely to affect the assessment competence of primary mathematics teachers.From the internal factors of teachers individuals,the teacher's viewpoint of student assessment is the basic factor which affects the primary mathematics teacher's assessment competence and the degree of consistency between assessment goals and teaching goals is the core factor and the assessment knowledge level is the key factor.In terms of external environmental factors,the assessment methods of teachers and students is the examination culture factor and the proportion of three-dimensional target content contained in primary school mathematics textbooks is the curriculum factor.The supportive factor is the research and training experience of "assessment subject" and the action modes of key stakeholders play a role as non-educational factors.The influence of the characteristics of mathematics subjects on the assessment competence of primary school mathematics teachers,is reflected more clearly in that teachers must make accurate judgments on the depth and breadth of mathematics attributes involved in pupils' mathematics learning.However,whether the assessment competence of mathematics teachers in primary schools has the subject characteristics,the research has not yet found sufficient evidence.4.The improvement of primary mathematics teachers' assessment competence should focus on teachers' self-improvement,school action and external support.The presentation of typical cases provides reference for teacher individual.The analysis of the practical measures of the development of teachers' assessment competence in primary school mathematics teaching and research group in the school N provides an example for the development of teacher assessment competence at the school level.For these examples,each subject can select the reference according to the actual needs.There are three aspects to improve the assessment competence of primary school teachers.First,the content of the "Primary Teacher Professional Standard(Trial)" on the assessment needs further modified and improved.The contents and indicators of each dimension should be refined and it is also necessary to define the connotations and elements of the " motivation and assessment" and other competence dimensions.Meanwhile,drawing on the structure of the "General High School Mathematics Curriculum Standards 2017" to divide the level of teachers' professional competence and selecting representative contents in each dimension to provide cases and development proposals.Second,for front-line teachers,it should be according to the characteristics of the subject,curriculum standards and subject literacy to re-examine the "assessment" function and role in students' cultivation.Teachers should cooperate with the assessment competence and the teaching competence as an integral part of the professional competence to develop consciously.Third,in terms of primary school mathematics teachers,they can use the relevant practices in the large-scale international education evaluation project,such as PISA and TIMMS,for reference.Teachers should develop their assessment competence through that trying to use oral test and other non-paper and pencil test methods to assess students' literacy in daily assessment.