School-Based and Standardised Assessments in Mathematics: A Correlational Study in Primary Schools
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37134/jpsmm.vol16.2.1.2026Keywords:
School-Based Assessment (SBA) , Standardised assessment , Mathematics performance, Parents’ perceptionsAbstract
Recently, School-Based Assessment (SBA) was introduced in the Malaysian primary schools. It offers a critical source of information for further actions to monitor and guide improvement in the school mathematics assessment. This study employed a correlational researrch design to evaluate the relationship between upper primary school students' performance in SBA and the standardised assessment in mathematics, and to compare parents’ perceptions of the implementation of the assessments. This study used simple random sampling based on the Krejcie and Morgan (1970) table. There were a total of 90 Year Six students and 108 of their parents from three primary schools in a Malaysian state who volunteered to take part in the study. SBA records gathered from school, a standardised mathematics exam question and a structured parent questionnaire were used in this study. The analyses used in this study are descriptive statistics and Spearman correlation. This study has confirmed that the SBA was worth implementing among primary school students in learning mathematics, as it has a moderate relationship with the standardised assessment in mathematics performance. However, parents found the standardised assessment reasonable for implementation. It offered fairness, objectivity, and the ability to differentiate students' abilities. Overall, this study suggests a rational way of assessing mathematics performance via the combination of both approaches. This study guides stakeholders on gaining parents' trust and fostering students' abilities via mathematics assessments.
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