Examining Development of Assessment Knowledge of Prospective Mathematics Teachers

The purpose of the study was to investigate assessment knowledge developments of prospective mathematics teachers during the undergraduate education. The explanatory-confirmatory research design, one of the mixed research designs, was used in this study. The participants of the study consist of 176 prospective teachers in total, 44 of them being first-grade, 44 second-grade, 44 third-grade, and 44 fourth-grade students studying at the department of elementary school mathematics education of a university in Turkey. In this study, the assessment knowledge test consisting of ten questions, the interview, the observation were used as data collection tools to examine the assessment knowledge development of prospective teachers. Both qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques were used during the data analysis process. The data on the classroom observations, interviews and knowledge test were presented in the study as direct quotations. As a result, it was found that the assessment knowledge of the prospective teachers was developed as directly proportional depending on the class level but this development was insufficient. Moreover, prospective teachers preferred traditional measurement-evaluation approaches more in their lesson practices. At the same time, it was observed prospective teachers did not benefit sufficiently from alternative measurement-evaluation approaches