The effectiveness of annual national assessment in monitoring mathematics education standard in South Africa

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to explore the effectiveness of Annual National Assessment (ANA) in monitoring the standard of mathematics education and to assess the mathematical proficiencies tested and exhibited by Grade 9 learners in South Africa. The research problem was premised on the dearth of data that justifies ANA as an evaluative assessment. As such, the study utilised five strands which were; procedural fluency, conceptual understanding, strategic competence, adaptive reasoning and productive dispositions as a theoretical framework to assess mathematics that was tested and exhibited by learners. To explore the research problem, the study used mixed methods in the context of exploratory sequential design. Document analysis was used first to capture mathematics content and cognitive levels examined by ANA. Second, learner responses were explored using four variables of achievement levels; no response, correctly answered, incorrectly answered and partially answered. First, the results from the analysis of ANA questions indicated that ANA mostly tested questions of low complexity. Second, the results from the learners’ responses revealed that the majority of learners were not proficient to ANA irrespective of low complexity testing. Third, the Porter’s alignment index for ANA and TIMSS was between moderate and perfect. Subsequently, content and cognitive levels were misaligned in the three consecutive years of ANA testing. It implies that learners were most likely to show a deficit of higher order problems solving skills which are a prerequisite of courses in advanced mathematics. Additionally, the results suggest that ANA had challenges of reliability and validity as an evaluative assessment due to inconsistency in the testing. As such, it is recommended that the complexity of ANA be addressed, the content areas where learners are not proficient be addressed and the alignment of ANA must be frequently calculated to monitor the standard of mathematics education in South Africa effectively. Keywords Alignment index, mean deviation, strands of mathematical proficiency, systemic assessment.