An exploratory study on the difficulty perceived by primary school teachers on a mathematics INVALSI item

Overview & Synopsis

This paper deals with the knowledge that teachers demonstrate when they interpret pupils' difficulties in the teaching and learning of whole numbers and decimals. This is part of a project aimed at investigating the link between standardized assessment in mathematics and the teaching-learning processes at the primary school level, in which data from a large sample of Italian primary school teachers were quantitively analyzed. In the current paper, we consider the first analysis together with a second questionnaire administered to a sample of 46 to enlarge the qualitative information about their perception of the difficulties. The answers from the second questionnaire were analyzed using the Mathematics Teachers' Specialized Knowledge model (MTSK) as a descriptive and interpretative tool. The results highlight the teachers' lack of awareness of the difficulties and reveal the need for specific training.