Monitoring of students’ educational achievements as a new format of independent assessment of knowledge in primary school

Abstract

Monitoring of students’ educational achievements (MSEA) arouses exciting interest both
in the pedagogical and in the public environment. The MSEA is designed to assess the functional literacy
of younger schoolchildren and prepare recommendations for improving the educational process. MSEA
does not imply legal consequences for schools, teachers and students. The purpose of this study is to
analyze the procedure for organizing monitoring of educational achievements of younger schoolchildren
in comparison with international studies by TIMSS and PIRLS. The analysis of the fundamental documents
of MSEA, TIMSS, PIRLS posted on official websites is carried out. The following differences between MSEA
and TIMSS, PIRLS are highlighted: age range of participants; frequency of conducting; preliminary testing;
assessment scale; difficulty level of tasks; format of test tasks; comparison of educational achievements of
boys and girls; parents’ questionnaire. There are also differences in the results of national and international
studies of primary school children. According to the results of the MSEA on reading literacy in the context
of «city–village» rural schoolchildren showed higher results. The comparison of the language of instruction
in reading and mathematical literacy was in favor of students in the Kazakh language. However, TIMSS
and PIRLS state the opposite in these aspects. The practical significance of the conducted research lies
in the fact that the authors have identified areas for discussions on improving the MSEA procedure and
methodology.