Analysis of the views of the secondary school mathematics teachers on skill-based questions

Entrance Exam for High School (LGS) for junior high 8th grade students in Turkey has been performed since 2018. Questions in this exam are categorized as skill-based questions. The purpose of this study is to determine the perceptions of middle school mathematics teachers towards the skill-based mathematics questions in LGS and their views on the difficulties they encounter with the students in the classroom upon the inclusion of these question types in the teaching process. The research was designed with one of the qualitative research methods; namely, grounded theory. The study group of the research consists of 26 mathematics teachers selected by the criterion sampling method. The data of the research was obtained through a semi-structured interview form. The data obtained from interview forms was put through a content analysis. According to the results obtained from the research, it was concluded that the participants did not have sufficient knowledge about the skill-based question concept and the new exam system, and that they interpreted these concepts in the way they perceived them. It is also noteworthy that teachers do not prepare unique skill-based questions. Furthermore, they evaluated the skill-based questions in a different category for both themselves and their students. For this reason, it was observed that the teachers asked the skill-based questions to the students in a separate time period like at the end of the lesson or during a special lesson hour. One of the points that the participants complained about solving skills-based questions is that the questions are very long to read and thus taking a long time as they require the use of many skills together. The teachers stated that they often have difficulty in understanding the questions. They expressed that students also have difficulties in understanding and answering the questions as the questions are above the readiness levels of them. It was concluded that the textbooks are insufficient to prepare students for skill-based questions, but the questions published by The Directorate General for Measurement, Assessment and Examination Services affiliated to the Ministry of National Education are found to be similar to those in the LGS exam. Moreover, teachers generally stated that this question style should be taught to students starting from lower grades. Keywords: System for entrance to high schools, skill-based question, high-level thinking skills