THE ROLE OF INTUITION IN THE ASSESSMENT OF MATHEMATICS

A group discussion was conducted with four teachers and excerpts from the transcripts of the discussion were presented in this session. The aim of the discussion was to draw out certain aspects of their assessment practices and for the researcher to consider how the teachers were using intuition in these practices. The excerpts were discussed in the session and participants ' views on the important points made will be used in the researcher's continuing work on this subject. The session also considered points from writers on intuition to illuminate our understanding of intuition in this context. Introd uction My interest in this topic has been prompted by collaborative work in the Graduate School of Education in considering aspects of the work of professional practitioners. Changes in the assessment procedures used by teachers in recent years would seem to have led to a degree of undermining of teachers' confidence in their professionalism and in their security in their use of various forms of professional knowledge. I wanted to investigate how teachers felt that they had been affected by national changes and to what extent they recognised the place of intuition in the assessments they made of pupils. I was also interested in how they valued assessments made by different methods and how they incorporated