From Frustration to Understanding: An Inquiry into Secondary Mathematics Teachers’ Experiences with Government Mandated Examinations
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to develop an understanding of secondary mathematics teachers’ experiences in a context of government-mandated examinations (GMEs). Having had my own experiences teaching mathematics courses where students wrote a GME, I had my own understandings of GMEs. From conversations with teachers, I found that others did not share the same view of GMEs that I had developed. Using a philosophical hermeneutic research methodology and philosophy based on the writings of Gadamer, the experiences of three secondary mathematics teachers are examined. The study took place in Alberta, Canada, where the current GME program has been in place since 1984. The exams that students write in Grade 12 are considered high stakes for the students because 50% of their grade in the course is determined by their score on the GME. The exams are considered moderate stakes for teachers because student results on the exam are reported publicly. Through conversation with three experienced secondary mathematics teachers, I found that teachers feel that the GMEs are high stakes for themselves for very different reasons. Additionally, the teachers in this study expressed perceptions of and relationships with the GME that were unique to their experiences and contexts. Engaging in the hermeneutic circle of developing understanding, the stories of experience and the language that the participants used to describe their experiences are investigated. Specific experiences are outlined and analyzed with both commonalities and differences between experiences highlighted. Each of the teachers in this study used the phrase preparing students to write GMEs. Exploration of how the teachers prepared her students revealed their beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning. The exploration also revealed the teachers’ understandings of the role of GMEs. Mandated examinations are a visible part of the education system in Alberta, Canada, and the world. Understanding how teachers experience teaching within the context can provide insight into how teachers negotiate demands on their work.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.012 | 0.040 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.015 | 0.016 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.014 | 0.008 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.015 |
| Research integrity | 0.005 | 0.009 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".