Children talk about mathematics assessment

Abstract

This paper reports on the second phase of a study in which Year 7 children speak about standardised compulsory state-wide Numeracy Tests. While accepting these tests as an unavoidable part of their schooling, the children developed strategies to cope with the multiple pressures the tests created. Their views reflect their understandings of the test as defining both mathematics, and mathematical competence. They speak of an assessment regime with the power to create anxiety, undermine their mathematical confidence and construct their mathematical identities, and contemplate changes to that might both improve the quality of information gathered, and enhance their wellbeing.