CONTEXTS FOR PURE MATHEMATICS AN ANALYSIS OF A- LEVEL….Image.Marked.pdf

D. Küchemann (Ed.), Proceedings of the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics, 27, 1, March 2007 CONTEXTS FOR PURE MATHEMATICS: AN ANALYSIS OF A- LEVEL MATHEMATICS PAPERS Chris Little and Keith Jones University of Southampton, UK While there has been some research into the use of context in mathematics assessments pre-16, little, if any, work exists on the role of context in post-16 mathematics. For A- and AS-level mathematics courses in the UK, assessment schemes are required to include questions that test candidates abilities to apply mathematical models to real-life contexts, and to translate real-life contexts into mathematics. This paper explores the ways in which context occurs in ‘pure’ mathematics questions and, through this, suggests a framework for analysis that encompasses issues of accessibility, realism and authenticity. INTRODUCTION The use of context in mathematics test items is now accepted practice in many forms of national assessment in the UK, with, on occasion, as many as 50% of questions in a particular set of papers involving some mention of a context external to mathematics. Yet that the use of context is not entirely straightforward is borne out by research. For example, Silver, Shapiro Deutsch (1993) researched the now famous ‘bus’ item, reporting how children, when asked to work out how many 36- seater buses would be required to transport 1128 soldiers, included fractions of a bus in their answers. Similarly, Verschaffel, De Corte Lasure (1994) found that children can fail to apply realistic considerations to their solutions of word problems. In the