Monitoring Student Progress in Mathematics and Science
Since the 2013–2014 school year, students take the following three final examinations at the end of the eighth grade of primary education: their mother tongue, mathematics, and a combined test that examines competence in the natural and social sciences, covering content and competencies in biology, geography, history, physics, and chemistry, as well as general competencies common to the natural and social sciences. The final examinations consist of questions and tasks that test competencies described in the educational standards on basic, intermediate, and advanced levels.
The Institute for Education Quality and Evaluation prepares workbooks and tests and performs quantitative and qualitative analysis of the results. Reports are prepared for stakeholders at different levels: students, classes, schools, municipalities, districts, school management, and the entire country. The criterion tests in mathematics for students in seventh grade were set in 2011. The institute also prepared criterion tests in mathematics and science for students in the fourth grade of primary school in 2012 and 2013, and distributed them to all schools in Serbia. In the 2014–2015 school year, initial testing in mathematics was conducted for students in Grades 4, 6, and 8.
Monitoring student development, progress, and achievement during the school year in mathematics and science is carried out through formative and summative assessment.38 Formative assessment includes verifying achievement and monitoring the conduct of students during their acquisition of the curriculum; it contains feedback and recommendations for further progress, and as a rule, it is included in teachers’ pedagogical documentation. Summative evaluation comprises assessing student achievement at the end of program units or evaluation periods in subject mastery and conduct.
“In the classroom, teachers assess students based on verbal achievement, written achievement, and practical work, in accordance with the subject syllabus. Depending on the subject and the students’ age, the teacher also assesses the following: expression and communication skills; understanding, implementing, and evaluating learned processes and procedures; working with data and working with different types of texts; artistic expression; skill in handling equipment, tools, and technologies; and task performance.”39 Student evaluations are descriptive in the first grade, and remain descriptive for compulsory optional subjects. Beginning in the second grade, students are graded numerically on the following scale: excellent (5), very good (4), good (3), sufficient (2), and insufficient (1).