Alignment between National College Entrance Examinations and Mathematics Curriculum Standards: A Comparative Analysis

Dae S. Hong, Yejun Bae , Yu-Fen Wu

http://doi.org/10.7468/jksmed.2019.22.3.153 | 2019 Korean Society of Mathematical Education

ABSTRACT

Measuring alignment of various educational components is an important issue in educational

research because with aligned educational system, we can have clear expectations about what to teach and assess. In this study, we examined the alignment between mathematics curriculum standards and college entrance examinations from Korea and China. The results indicate that curriculum standards and high stakes assessments from both countries are not well aligned to each other. Their Surveys of Enacted Curriculum (SEC) indices were lower than what previous studies have found and the critical values (Fulmer, 2011; Liu & Fulmer, 2008; Liu et al., 2009). There are several topics that are not assessed in both countries’ national assessments. Also, discrepancies between the most frequently covered topics in the curriculum standards and the most frequently assessed mathematical topics in the national assessments caused topic level misalignment. We also found misalignment in cognitive level. Both national assessments included more perform procedures and demonstrate understanding items than their respective curriculum standards. Thus, previous findings about the inclusion of more items with higher cognitive demand in assessments is only partially true for either country. With these results, it is difficult to say that whether mathematical topics in the curriculum standards appropriately represent and support students to do well on the CSAT and the NCEE or that the mathematical items in the CSAT and the NCEE validly assess students’ level of mathematical understanding.

Keywords: Alignment, College Entrance Examinations, Curriculum Standards

ZDM classification: D60.

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 97C40