Investigating the horizontal alignment between Grade 9 content standards, the mathematics curriculum framework, and summative assessment in secondary schools in Mpumalanga.
Qhibi, Agnes Dulu
Qhibi, Agnes Dulu
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Abstract
The Department of Basic Education (DBE) established the South African Mathematics Curriculum Framework (SAMCF) to enhance and balance the approach to teaching and learning mathematics (DBE, 2018:8). It is envisaged that the SAMCF will help teachers develop learners with mathematical understanding and improve learner performance. The establishment of the SAMCF was prompted by the consistent poor learner performance in mathematics. It is recommended that the curriculum framework must be horizontally aligned with the content standards and assessment to enable achievement of the intended learning outcomes (Webb, 1997:5). This study sought to investigate the alignment between Grade 9 mathematics content standards, the SAMCF, and summative assessment tasks in Mpumalanga. The study aimed to establish the fundamental basis for how these educational components are aligned prior to the full implementation of the SAMCF.
A mixed methods research design and concurrent triangulation were employed to explore different perspectives to effectively guide the education system. Further, document analysis was conducted to obtain comprehensive findings about the research problem. Moreover, the National Research Council (NRC, 2001) and two alignment models, Webb’s (1997) alignment model and Porter’s (2002) alignment model were employed as theoretical frameworks to guide this study. The findings reveal that the content structure of the Grade 9 mathematics summative assessment tasks from the four secondary schools in Mpumalanga were not well aligned with the Grade 9 mathematics content standards. Most major concepts were not assessed in the summative assessment tasks. The calculated Porter’s alignment index between Grade 9 mathematics content standards and the summative assessment tasks was statistically significantly low at an average of 0,699. The study recommends that courses on alignment of educational components should be established and incorporated at tertiary level; and more alignment studies should be conducted to improve alignment and guide the education system.
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Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Education in the Department of Educational Foundation, Faculty of Humanities at the Tshwane University of Technology.
Date
2024-05-01
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Tshwane University of Technology
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Keywords
Alignment, Content standards, Curriculum framework, Summative assessment task