Assessment of Standard-based Mathematics Competencies in Primary School: An Overview

In this overview we present recent work on standard-based assessments of mathematical competencies in primary school. In contrast to traditional psychology-driven instruments on testing mathematics skills that often provide domain-specific information on individual deficits, we focus on assessment measures that are stronger grounded in the tradition of mathematics education and are used in large-scale assessments in which classes or schools represent the units of analysis. Tests from national and international assessments and their theoretical background are presented. Furthermore we provide arguments why these tests measure different constructs than psychometric intelligence tests and discuss more general validity aspects of standard-based mathematics tests. We end with some suggestions for future research on the assessment of mathematics competencies in primary education.