Assessment in primary school mathematics education in Brazil

Abstract

In this study, we aimed to gain further knowledge about Brazilian primary school teachers' assessment practices and beliefs in mathematics education. For this, we carried out an analysis of curriculum documents and reviewed recent research literature on assessment in Brazil, permitting us to answer the following research question: How are the mathematics assessment practices and teachers' beliefs, as revealed in recent research, and how are these related to the conceptualization of assessment in Brazilian mathematics curriculum documents? We found that teachers' assessment practices, as described in the reviewed research between 2010 and 2017, did, in general, not reflect the conceptualization of assessment in the curriculum documents. Furthermore, despite that the beliefs of most teachers on assessment reflected it to be a process to improve teaching and learning, their mathematics assessment practices did not favor assessment for learning. Still, they were mostly used as an instrument to determine students' classification. We recommend a public policy in which teachers are offered opportunities for professional development, focusing on formative assessment in mathematics education.