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Large-Scale Assessment of Change in Student Achievement: Dutch Primary School Students’ Results on Written Division in 1997 and 2004 as an Example

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Marja van den Heuvel-Panhuizen ,
Alexander Robitzsch ,
Adri Treffers  and
Olaf Köller
Marja van den Heuvel-Panhuizen*
Affiliation:
Freudenthal Institute for Science and Mathematics Education (FISME) and Institute for Educational Progress, Humboldt University Berlin
Alexander Robitzsch
Affiliation:
Institute for Educational Progress, Humboldt University Berlin
Adri Treffers
Affiliation:
Freudenthal Institute for Science and Mathematics Education (FISME), Utrecht University
Olaf Köller
Affiliation:
Institute for Educational Progress, Humboldt University Berlin
*
Requests for reprints should be sent to Marja van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, Freudenthal Institute, Utrecht University, Postbus 9432, 3506 GK Utrecht, The Netherlands. E-mail: m.vandenheuvel@fi.uu.nl
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Abstract

This article discusses large-scale assessment of change in student achievement and takes the study by Hickendorff, Heiser, Van Putten, and Verhelst (2009) as an example. This study compared the achievement of students in the Netherlands in 1997 and 2004 on written division problems. Based on this comparison, they claim that there is a performance decline in this subdomain of mathematics, and that there is a move from applying the digit-based long division algorithm to a less accurate way of working without writing down anything. In our discussion of this study, we address methodological challenges that come in when investigating long-term trends in student achievements, such as the need for adequate operationalizations, the influence of the time of measurement and the necessity of the comparability of assessments, the effect of the assessment format, and the importance of inclusion relevant covariates in item response models. All these issues matter when assessing change in student achievement.

Keywords

large-scale assessmentprimary schoolachievementchangewritten division
Type
Theory and Methods
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 74 , Issue 2 , June 2009 , pp. 351 - 365
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 The Psychometric Society

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