Reintroducing the oral group examination in Mathematics: A case study of a protest in Denmark

• In Event: Assessment, New Digital Technologies and Education

Proposal

In this study, the author has adopted three distinct viewpoints; behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism as a theoretical framework. These three were chosen because of their importance to the field of education. To understand and describe students’ learning, the author has especially focused on constructivism. The academic competences that today's students need are not only the competence to remember what their teachers taught them and answer written tests, but also the ability to work with others to solve problems that have more than one answer or open-ended.
The research question of this study is as followed; how is it possible to implement fair assessment that can retain a constructivist approach under the learning objectives? Measuring and quantifying about students' performance becomes an end rather than a means to check students’ proficiency. There is a danger that the results can be falsified or fabricated. This is why it is worthwhile to study examples from non-high-stakes countries, Denmark, for instance. In Denmark, they assess all 9th grade students upon completion of their compulsory education through written and oral exams. For Japanese, it is understandable to implement oral exams in language classes. But in Denmark, they implement it in Mathematics, too. Math exams consist mainly of the following three components; a written exam with no assistance received, a written exam with assistance provided, and an oral group exam taken by selected class students. The oral group exam in mathematics, which is usually conducted from May to June, is given to classes randomly selected by lottery. One-thirds of all students in Denmark are targeted. In February, the principal is informed of the classes to which the examination will be given, and this information is provided to teachers and students around this time of the year. Consequently, discussion or group work in Math classes is heavily emphasized in accordance with topics and projects so that all Danish 9th-grade classes are comfortable with oral exams, even if the class does not end up taking it.
The group oral examination was abolished in 2006, and there were various protests until it was reinstated in 2013. The oral group exam in Mathematics, as well as Science exams, have been abolished by the government which emphasized that the diploma belongs to the individual and must therefore reflect the individual's knowledge and competence. This led the Danish teachers’ organization to set up a protest website, where the 25,000 students from all over the country signed in the first four days. The Association of Mathematics Teachers, the Association of Biologists, the Association of Geography and the Association of Physics and Chemistry Teachers wrote a joint request which stated individual written exams are not enough to reflect the daily teaching and students’ competences. Common Objectives contain elements that can only be evaluated in the current form of examination, the oral group exam. The associations highlighted the importance of being able to collaborate to show their ability to argue and reason. Also, each student is examined and graded individually and they have the opportunity to take the test alone, if they wish. The author has interviewed 5 experts in Mathematics, and they agreed that the group oral exam gives a better picture of the student's position because it corresponds to the form of the teaching, because the students become less nervous than with an individual test, and it also gives the opportunity to assess competences such as cooperation and planning, which all the students will need in their further education and in the business world.
From this study, the author found the results as below. In Denmark, academic competences are measured by appropriate combined tasks. For 9th grade Math, written exam without assistance, written exam which allows all students to bring in their own smartphones and laptops, and oral group exams for randomly selected classes are conducted. The author believes that both teachers and students are expected to have a flexible and dynamic view of learning, constantly searching for an equilibrium point while trying various theoretical approaches depending on the task and situation. Moreover, they implement fair assessment that can retain a constructivist approach under the learning objectives, because the learning objectives are constructivist and they prepare optimum assessments. The author also found out that in order to maintain fairness and objectivity in oral group exams, they always have external examiners. In addition, looking at PISA Math results from 2003 to 2018, Denmark had relatively low scores during the period when the oral group exam was abolished (2009 and 2012). Students' oral skills, which are often considered peripheral in pedagogy, may be of great importance in building students' competences.

Author

• Katsura Ichikawa, Tokyo University of Marine Science And Technology