Assessing mathematical writing: comparative judgment and professional learning

The chapter discusses potential professional learning benefits for educators who engage in assessing students' mathematical writing. It draws on interview data from twelve mathematics educators who were experienced in assessing primary students' written responses to free response prompts covering a range of topics. The first stage of the interviews used a stimulated recall protocol that followed a comparative judgment procedure in which each participant was presented with pairs of students' written responses and asked to decide which was ‘better'. The second stage was semi-structured with questions about how participants made their comparative judgment decisions, and whether doing so improved their understanding of students' thinking. The findings are that assessing mathematical writing can provide educators with insights into students' representations, underlying ideas and learning trajectories, and can also provide stimulus for changing classroom practice.