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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Educ.
Sec. Assessment, Testing and Applied Measurement
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1367942

Searching for Efficient and Informative Instruments to Digitally Monitor Fraction Learning: Putting Tests for Fraction Subconstruct Knowledge and Informal Fraction Knowledge on the Test Bench

Provisionally accepted
  • Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Fractions are a relevant yet complex topic of school mathematics. Fortunately, educational research issued rich knowledge of central concepts and associated students’ difficulties. Using this knowledge for monitoring learning and formative assessment could support students’ learning process. However, access to apt evidence-based tests is restricted, and paper-based testing limits their practical usability. The digital adaptation of paper-based tests may address these challenges due to affordances like automated test scoring. Further, digital tests may facilitate repeated test use necessary for monitoring and formative activities. The present contribution focuses on fraction subconstruct knowledge and informal fraction knowledge and is part of a systematic research effort to transform paper-based tests into a digital format. With two cross-sectional studies in Grades 6 (N = 233) and 5 (N = 271), each with three measurement points, we investigated the psychometric properties of adapted digital parallel tests regarding their suitability for repeated testing. The internal structure of the adapted digital tests proved to be comparable to that of the original paper-based tests in many, but not all, aspects. Parallel tests were found to be sufficiently parallel. The findings for the two focused constructs support that systematic efforts lead to usable tools for students’ fraction learning. The discussion considers how this supports the transformation of research findings to support the adoption of formative assessment.

    Keywords: psychometric quality, learning progress, (informal) fraction knowledge, digital assessment, IRT-scaling

    Received: 09 Jan 2024; Accepted: 07 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Schadl and Lindmeier. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Constanze Schadl, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.