Co²Ca / Conditions and Consequences of Classroom Assessment

The project is carried out within the framework of the priority programme “competence models“ and intends to follow the question how diagnostic information is used by school actors. The general goal of the project consists in assessing how a formative measurement of achievement should be designed in lessons in order to enable a precise and detailed assessment of achievements as well as bearing a positive impact on subsequent measurements of student achievement. Tasks were developed and tested in the first project funding phase (2007-2009) providing the basis for the next two steps, a laboratory and a field experiment (1). Feedback as a central element of formative measurements of achievements will be examined more closely in the second funding phase (2009-2011) in a laboratory experiment (2). A field study will be conducted in the same second phase of funding, in order to implement the laboratory findings in an ecologically valid setting (3).

(1) Task Testing

Two units of instruction were collated and developed for ninth year mathematics lessons in the first funding phase, that is the Pythagorean theorem and linear equation systems, in order to test achievement scores for the two part competencies of modelling competence and technical competence in a differentiated manner.  These tasks can be applied to a lesson-based assessment of achievement. Together with standard-based tasks relating to educational standards, they are implemented in a random sample of approximately 1,500 ninth year students at the intermediate secondary school type. Complex psychometric scaling procedures were applied to link the lesson-based with the standard-based tasks in order to assign the lesson-based tasks to the competence dimensions of the educational standards. It is necessary to scale lesson-based and standard-based tasks jointly so that the item parameters can be used in the subsequent laboratory experiment.

(2) The Laboratory Experiment

At the beginning of the second funding phase, motivational and cognitive effects of different kinds of feedback shall be examined in an experiment as they constitute a central element of formative assessments of achievement. Furthermore, the experiment shall analyse the effects of the content scope of the task (lesson-related versus standard-related) on motivational and cognitive processes of students. Hence, tests are designed from the tasks applied in the first phase of funding. These relate either to educational standards or to one of the lesson units and the students receive feedback regarding their achievement, which is varied according to certain conditions.

(3) The Field Experiment

We plan to conduct a field experiment in a real classroom setting to validate the findings from the lab experiment in an ecologically sound manner. Here, we will assess in how far the two effects established for the laboratory situation, that is content scope and feedback, apply to a classroom situation.  In order to realise the respective levels generated for the two factors in the lab experiment in a classroom setting, training courses for teachers are developed where they are trained to apply and assess either lesson-based or standard-based tests and how to give feedback on the outcomes. The tasks from the first funding phase will be applied in this context and the training sessions are oriented towards the conditions of the lab experiments.

Publications

Rakoczy, K., Klieme, E., Bürgermeister, A., & Harks, B. (2008). The Interplay Between Student Evaluation and Instruction: Grading and Feedback in Mathematics Classrooms. Zeitschrift für Psychologie / Journal of Psychology. 216(2), 111–124.

Klieme, E., Bürgermeister, A., Harks, B., Blum, W., Leiß, D., Rakoczy, K. (2010): Leistungsbeurteilung und Kompetenzmodellierung im Mathematikunterricht. In: Klieme, E., Leutner, D., Kenk, M. (Hrsg.): Kompetenzmodellierung. Zwischenbilanz des DFG-Schwerpunktprogramms und Perspektiven des Forschungsansatzes. 56. Beiheft der Zeitschrift für Pädagogik, Heft 2/2010, Beltz-Verlag, Weinheim und Basel

Founding

German Research Foundation, within the priority program "competence models"

Project co-ordination