Publications & Resources

Teachers’ Shifting Assessment Practices in the Context of Educational Reform in Mathematics

Dec 1997

Geoffrey B. Saxe, Megan L. Franke, Maryl Gearhart, Sharon Howard, and Michele Crockett

This paper presents a study of primary and secondary mathematics teachers’ changing assessment practices in the context of policy, stakeholder, and personal presses for change. Using survey and interviews, we collected teachers’ reports of their uses of three forms of assessment, one linked to traditional practice (exercises), and two linked to reforms in mathematics education (open ended problems and rubrics). Findings revealed several trajectories of change in the interplay between assessment forms and the functions that they serve. Teachers may implement new assessment form in ways that serve ‘old’ functions; teachers may re-purpose ‘old’ assessment forms in ways that reveal students’ mathematical thinking. Our developmental framework provides a way to understand the dynamics of teacher development in relation to ongoing educational reforms.

Saxe, G. B., Franke, M. L., Gearhart, M., Howard, S., & Crockett, M. (1997). Teachers’ shifting assessment practices in the context of educational reform in mathematics (CSE Report 471). Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST).