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Assessment and Mathematics Education: Possibilities and Challenges of Brazilian Research

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Abstract

This chapter portrays Brazilian research that connects the fields of assessment and mathematics education. It reflects on what has been investigated in the scope of the working group on Assessment and Mathematics Education of the Brazilian Society of Mathematics Education since its conception in 2000. The research projects that have formed the basis of the group’s work over the six editions of the International Mathematics Education Research Seminar (SIPEM) have been classified into the following categories: learning assessment, assessment as investigation practice, assessment and inequality processes and assessment and teacher training. Before detailing the approaches that characterise each category, an overview of the Brazilian assessment system is presented to situate the reader. More than providing solutions, this chapter attempts to consider research practices regarding mathematics education based on theoretical and methodological discussion and shared research experiences. It calls attention to some changes in school mathematics education, indicating some challenges associated with the integration and articulation between assessment, teaching and learning, the assessment criteria that teachers adopt, and how are they related to the development of learning and the articulations that can be established between internal and external assessment.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The book “Historical marks in Education Reform”, organised by Nigel Brooke, presents a collection of articles that allows tracing an evolution of the main ideas behind educational reforms occurred in several countries in the last five decades, which, according to the author, changed the way of thinking education.

  2. 2.

    For other information on test in phases, see works produced in the scope of GEPEMA—Grupo de Estudo e Pesquisa em Educação Matemática e Avaliação (Study and Research Group in Assessment and Mathematics Education), coordinated by Professor Regina Luzia Corio de Buriasco (Universidade Estadual de Londrina—UEL (Londrina State University), Londrina, Paraná, Brazil).

  3. 3.

    The first assessment involved test application (in Mathematics, Reading, Science, Geography and History) to students in the 3rd, 5th and 7th grades of elementary and middle school.

  4. 4.

    As from this moment, SAEB is conducted by the Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira—INEP (Anísio Teixeira National Institute for Educational Studies and Research), an authority linked to the Ministry of Education (MEC).

  5. 5.

    According to Mainardes (2015), different kinds of education organisation cycles have been created since the 1980s, including the literacy cycle (Ciclo de Alfabetização), which includes the first 3 years of elementary school. The author considers the creation of this cycle as a relevant proposal to ensure a better literacy, based on one fundamental principle: learning as a continuous process.

  6. 6.

    See, for example: Esteban et al. (2010); Esteban (2012); Fernandes (2014).

  7. 7.

    Student participation dynamics occurred in collective and individual work contexts. For example, task resolution could occur in pairs or small groups, but discussion of the different group’s resolutions always happened in a large group (Borralho & Lucena, 2015, p. 10).

  8. 8.

    Regina Luzia C. de Buriasco, from Universidade Estadual de Londrina (UEL) (Londrina State University, Paraná, Brazil) was the first coordinator of WG08 and remained in charge for four consecutive mandates, from 2000 to 2012. She coordinates the GEPEMA—Grupo de Estudo e Pesquisa em Educação Matemática e Avaliação (Study and Research Group in Assessment and Mathematics Education).

  9. 9.

    The study is part of an inter-institutional project involving students at the beginning and end of mathematics and education courses at two universities in the south of the country.

  10. 10.

    According to Forquin (1995), several studies conducted in the United States, France and England, with a view to verify the effects of socioeconomic factors, family and the school in relation to access and school performance, had the merit of drawing the attention of governments and society in general to the effect of social inequalities, such as access conditions and performance.

  11. 11.

    In the previous SIPEM editions, we identified only one work (presented in SIPEM I) focusing on failure in mathematics, but without a discussion that would allow to relate it to social inequality processes.

  12. 12.

    School climate is a recent expression in educational literature. Associated to the school environment it may be related to various dimensions of school organisation: relations between teachers and management team; relations between teachers, management team and community; relations between teachers and students and school curriculum, among others.

  13. 13.

    Both PISA and ENEM allow that averages be obtained in global scale (mathematics) and subscales (mathematics subareas). PISA calls subareas: quantity, uncertainty, space and shape, and change and relationships. ENEM uses the following names: numbers, statistics and probability, geometry and algebra.

  14. 14.

    This work is the result of a research project between the postgraduate programme in mathematics education of the Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul (Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul) and postgraduate programme in science teaching and mathematics education of the Universidade Estadual de Londrina (State University of Londrina) with CNPq support (Universal Notice, 14/2012).

  15. 15.

    For the authors, perception delimits all that we are able to feel and understand, corresponding thus to a selective ordering of the stimuli, creating a dichotomy between what we perceive and what we do not realise. Most of the human sensitivity, including internal sensations, is linked to the unconscious. Another part however, even also participating in the sensory, comes to our knowledge in articulated way, that is, in organised forms. This organised and articulated construction is nothing more than perception, which includes the intellectual being.

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Ortigão, M.I.R., dos Santos, J.R.V., Dalto, J.O. (2018). Assessment and Mathematics Education: Possibilities and Challenges of Brazilian Research. In: Ribeiro, A., Healy, L., Borba, R., Fernandes, S. (eds) Mathematics Education in Brazil . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93455-6_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93455-6_9

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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