The Queensland Core Skills Test : implications for the mathematical sciences

Gabrielle Matters, Board of Senior Secondary School Studies Queensland
Ken Gray, Board of Senior Secondary School Studies Queensland

Abstract

The focus of the Queensland Core Skills (QCS) Test is on the assessment of individual and group student performance on 49 common curriculum elements; that is, the cognitive skills that are the threads of the senior curriculum. The first part of this paper provides a general introduction to the QCS Test: its purposes, its features, what it tests and the process by which it is designed. A highly desirable property of the QCS Test is that students of any given subject are not necessarily advantaged or disadvantaged in regard to performance on any particular item. On the other hand, mathematics is one of the few subjects that students can be assumed to have studied to Year 10. The second part of this paper focuses on the ways in which test construction and implementation ensure that the QCS Test is grounded in the senior school curriculum while fostering subject-independent measurement of student performance. [ISBN: 072426034X]