Meaningful Assessments of Students Who Struggle to Learn Mathematics

Abstract

This chapter presents the results of collaboration among special education, mathematics education, and psycholinguistic researchers, with a focus on meaningful assessments for students who have difficulties with learning mathematics. Gaining knowledge of the mathematical abilities of students who struggle or who have particular learning disabilities is often limited in traditional assessments. Access to struggling students’ ability to reason and solve problems may be obscured because of inadequate approaches and limitations in assessing the knowledge of these students using traditional test items. Our goal is to address these concerns and other obstacles to assessment and suggest additional and alternate ways of measuring students’ knowledge. It is noteworthy for researchers to attend to what are termed “learning disabilities” in mathematics and the characteristics of goal requirements in students’ individualized education programs (IEPs). IEP requirements are understood in relation to assessment approaches that are used to identify students who struggle to learn mathematics. In particular, it is essential to consider former, existing, and emerging theoretical views of mathematics and special education educators regarding what might be considered the “ability” of students to learn mathematics.