The imperative of success and fear of school failure: an example of national assessment of knowledge in the ninth grade

Nacionalni preizkusi znanja (NPZ) so testi, ki jih sestavljajo strokovnjaki in strokovnjakinje za določene predmete, učenci/učenke pa jih izpolnjujejo na isti dan po celotni državi. Le-ti so namreč že od uvedbe predmet razprav v strokovnih in vsakdanjih govorih. Namenjeni so tako učencem/učenkam kot tudi učiteljem/učiteljicam, staršem, šolam, strokovnim delavcem/delavkam in šolskemu sistemu na nacionalni ravni. V mojem diplomskem delu pa se osredotočim predvsem na odnos devetošolcev/devetošolk do NPZ. S pomočjo dveh raziskovalnih vprašanj, ki sem si ju zastavila na začetku, sem želela ugotoviti kako razumejo pomen in namen preizkusov, kako se pripravljajo nanje, kakšen pomen imajo zanje osebno letošnji rezultati preizkusov, ter kakšne so razlike med odnosom učenk in učencev do NPZ-jev in formalno opredeljeno vlogo teh preizkusov. Nekatere ključne ugotovitve pridobljene s pomočjo narativne analize med petnajstimi učenci/učenkami na eni izmed osnovnih pokažejo, da so učenke in učenci sicer seznanjeni s formalno opredelitvijo preizkusov, vendar se na njih veliko ne pripravljajo (jih ne jemljejo resno). Prav tako pa večine, (razen 4-ih) dosežki na letošnjih NPZ testih ne skrbijo, saj se jim rezultati ne bodo upoštevali pri vpisu na srednjo šolo.The national assessment of knowledge (NPZ) are tests that are made by experts of certain fields, which are then taken by pupils on the same day throughout the whole country. Since their implementation, they are the subject of debate in professional and everyday discussions. They are intended for pupils as well as teachers, parents, schools, professional school workers and for the school system on the national level. However, in my diploma thesis, I mainly focus on the attitude of pupils to NPZ-s. With two research questions, which I set out at the beginning of my research, I wanted to find out how pupils understand the meaning and purpose of the tests, how they prepare for said tests, what is the personal meaning of the test results for them and what are the differences between the pupils attitude towards the NPZ and the formal role of these tests. Some of he key findings obtained with a narrative analysis of fifteen pupils from the ninth grade in one of the elementary schools show, that pupils are familiar with the formal definition of tests but they do not take much pre-test preparation (they do not take them seriously). Most pupils, (except 4 of them) in this year\u27s NPZ-tests do not worry about their achievements, because their results will not be taken into consideration for secondary school enrollment