Research Projects

The ACER Progressive Achievement Tests in Mathematics   (PATMaths) is a widely used set of mathematics tests assessing students from third year of primary school to second year of secondary school in the strands of Number, Space, Measurement, Chance and Data and Algebra.

In 2004, these tests will be revised and improved. All questions will be reviewed for level suitability and fit to current curricula and modified or replaced if necessary.

Existing features of the tests that enable:

  * surveying individual student ability across the strands
  * monitoring of student or class improvement over time
  * comparison of student performance between classes
  * comparison of student or class with an Australian reference group (norm sample) will be retained, and new features added
  * new tests developed to extend coverage to students in third year of secondary school and in general mathematics groups at fourth year
  * all questions explicitly connected to mathematics curriculum documents from each of the Australian states and territories, both by reference to strand and sub-strand, level and sublevel, and by use of language in descriptors for questions similar to the language used in the curricula
  * the full set of tests re-normed using a 2004 random sample drawn from all sectors in all states and territories.