Developing a New Functional Skills Maths (Paper-Based) Initial Assessment and Exploring Its Effectiveness

Abstract

This chapter is based on a research-based assessment development initiative at the Bedford College Group. The need for a new initial assessment for functional skills maths arose due to the expiration of the college's existing licence. The development of this new assessment aimed to evaluate similar skills and foundational knowledge as the previous one while maintaining comparable grade boundaries that reflect students' current proficiency levels to help place them on suitable courses. This study suggests that an initial assessment should serve the dual purpose of determining a learner's level and gaining insight into their mathematical skills and foundational knowledge. This is achieved by providing opportunities for students to demonstrate problem-solving methods, enabling teachers to assess and evaluate these approaches. These insights formed the foundation for designing and developing the department-based functional skills maths initial assessment, which underwent testing as part of a BRIEF project. The questions, all of which were linked to aspects of familiar daily life, were also designed to reflect Subject Content Statements (SCSs) at the different levels of functional skills maths, from an awarding body's Subject Content Mapping document. During the study, students' results from the existing initial assessment were compared with those from the department-based assessment. The findings indicated that students' scores in the department-based initial assessment were within ten percent of those from the current one. Two student groups were assessed: adults and 16–18-year-old ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) students, representing the two cohorts studying functional skills maths within the Department of Adult English and Maths. The research demonstrates that the department-based initial assessment effectively replaces the existing one. Its administration and grading are straightforward, in contrast to online math assessments, and it incurs minimal costs. Moreover, the study underscores the superiority of paper-based math initial assessments over online ones for a particular group of students, highlighting their efficiency, accuracy, and suitability for post-16 education settings.