Varieties of knowledge as the object of assessment in the traditional school examinations

Abstract

The identification of the examination requirements set by teachers of the mother-tongue (24) and teachers of physics (24) in elementary and seconadry schools has shown that they concern the factual, the interpolational, the operational, and the extrapolational aspects of the learner's knowledge. A comparison of the marks assigned by all these teachers with their learners’ scores in the fractions of the tests which were used to examine the above-mentioned varieties of knowledge, revealed that the marks reflect the factual, the interpolational, the operational, and the extrapolational aspects. It was ascertained at the same time that the varieties which are dominant in the examination requirements of the theachers are also dominant in their evaluations. The teachers of the mother-tongue in primary schools generally require and evaluate the factual and the interpolational aspects, and secondary-school teachers the operational aspects. The teachers of physics, both in primary and secondary schools, chiefly require and evaluate the interpolational aspect.
Intercorrelations of the results achieved by the same learners in all fractions of the test were of unequal degrees, which suggested that the varieties under scrutiny were not mutually coordinated; they rather exhibited subordination of the more simple to the more complex varieties, which are of a higher order.
The data collected in the investigation do not form a basis for the definition of the learner’s knowledge as a unified category. The view that hierarchical facets of knowledge of unequal complexity and interdependence co- -exist in the learner side by side seems to be more realistic.