Assessment as an Investigative Practice (some notes)

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to present some remarks on how assessment of school learning in mathematics can be taken as an investigative practice. In order to do this, the analysis of students´ written work and some aspects related to the kinds of questions they usually use to carry out the assessment (exploring mathematization and context) are taken into account. Assessment of school learning as an investigative activity is a practice that seeks answers regarding how the processes involved in it take place. One might ask what is directly observable and try to understand these processes by following clues that leadsto an examination of what is not observable – in other words, an investigation. From this perspective, assessment is then performed as a practice that broadens teachers’ possibilities to investigate students' learning processes, as well as to follow and participate in that process. Key words: Mathematics Education. School Assessment Process as an Investigative Practice. Analysis of Written Production.