“Assessment, as a common phenomenon in our everyday” : A quantitative didactical study of teachers’ attitudes to different assessment methods in math teaching

Assessment has gained an increasing importance in our daily lives. It's a phenomenon that can control us whether we get rated or not. We assess students at school to measure the level of knowledge they are on. The purpose of this study is to determine which attitudes that occurs in traditional and alternative assessment in mathematics education. Another goal with the study is to compare what trends can be read with a survey conducted in Sidney, Australia. The questions that were designed were: • What attitudes are present in alternative assessment in mathematics education? • What trends can be read in a comparison between Sweden and Australia? Several elementary school teachers attending mathematics education answered a questionnaire that was then analyzed. The study has been based on three ways of assessing, different alternatives to why the methods would or would not be used, as well as the curriculum impact. The result shows that teachers from both Sweden and Australia overall are satisfied with the traditional assessment method, paper and pencil as an appropriate and sufficient way to assess students. The result showed that teachers in Sweden had no general positive attitude towards implementing alternative assessment methods in mathematics education. However, the method of teaching in Sweden that showed a good attitude was observation, formative assessment.