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Math 2008 is an Area F course for early childhood majors in the University System of Georgia. The course covers basic skills that pre-service teachers will most likely be teaching in their career. At Georgia Southern University, many students in the course do not possess or have forgotten these basic skills. In Fall 2009, a basic skills test was implemented for Math 2008. Students must earn a score of 90 or higher on the test in order to pass the course. The test not only serves to let students know their areas of weakness, but also informs the instructor’s teaching. After the instructors implemented the skills test in this course, they found that most students started to take the material seriously, understand their weaknesses, and make an effort to learn. Also, the instructors are more aware of major gaps in the students’ understanding of number sense and can focus instruction on those areas. The informal results of three instructors' experiences are described in this article. 28 GAMTE Proceedings 2010 Basic Skills Testing in Math 2008 Math 2008: Foundations of Numbers and Operations is a required course for all early childhood education majors in the University System of Georgia. At Georgia Southern University we require both early childhood and middle grades education majors to take the course. The focus of this course is number sense with topics concerning sets, logic, numeration systems, number theory, whole numbers, real numbers, fractions, decimals, ratio and percent. Obviously, these are important concepts for future elementary and middle school teachers. As instructors of these courses we use a variety of manipulatives and teaching methods. Building a better understanding of these mathematical concepts is stressed through modeling and group work. The books we have used for this course also stress developing these mathematical concepts. However, many of the books appear to view basic skills as a “given”. After all, these students are in college and the material is elementary. Surely, they can do basic arithmetic! While working with our students we realized that many of them cannot perform basic arithmetic skills, particularly without the aid of a calculator. Thus, we require the students complete most of the inclass assignments and tests without a calculator, and we supplement the course with various “skill” sheets. In addition, several instructors developed and began to administer a pre/post basic skills test to the students in Math 2008. These pre/post tests have been given for many years and were for the instructor’s benefit. They were not connected to the student’s grade in the course. Since the students did not feel pressure to perform well on the tests, they did not take them seriously. Due to our students’ poor performance, we decided to make the “skills” test a legitimate part of the course. We developed a 25question basic skills test that is administered to all Math 2008 students each semester and serves as an exit requirement for the course. For students to successfully complete Math 2008, they must earn a minimum average of C and achieve at least 90% on the basic skills test. The test is intended to encourage students to improve their basic skills in arithmetic and to give instructors a measure of the students’ abilities in this area. The test assesses the topics in the chart below. Topics Assessed on Basic Skills Test  place value  rounding  addition of whole numbers  addition of decimals  subtraction of decimals  multiplication of whole numbers  multiplication of decimals  division of whole numbers  division of decimals  LCM/GCF  equivalent fractions  mixed numbers and improper fractions  fraction/decimal conversion  addition of fractions  subtraction of fractions  multiplication of fractions  division of fractions  fraction/decimal/percent conversions The questions on the skills test were chosen from among the 40 questions on the original pre/post test. These 40 questions were directly related to the mathematical content taught in the Math 2008 course, therefore providing content validation for the test. The top 25 questions selected by the instructors of the course formed the framework for the basic skills test. Multiple forms of the test were created by writing similar problems for each form. The test is called a “basic skills test” because the students are asked to perform a skill. That is, students are required to use traditional algorithms to solve problems (e.g., multiplying fractions together). The focus is on the student’s ability to “get a correct answer using an appropriate technique.” This is quite different from the final exam given at the end of the course. The final exam is more conceptual. Students are required to demonstrate and explain mathematical concepts. On the final, students might draw area models to demonstrate multiplying fractions and would explain their method. GAMTE Proceedings 2010 29 Instructor 1 Class 2 # of Attempts # of Students 1 2 2 10 3 11 4 3 5 6 6+ 1 Gave Up 0 Withdrew 2 Although the test may be administered at any point during the course, several instructors have decided to keep the pretest option by giving the test on the first day of class. Students achieving the minimum 90% or higher have met the requirement and never take the test again. Those students not meeting the minimum must repeat the test until they obtain an adequate score. Thus, six different forms of the test were created. The basic skills test has been a requirement since Fall Semester 2009. Three of the instructors who normally teach this course used the test as a pretest. Instructor 1 taught two sections of Math 2008 in Fall 2009, Instructor 2 taught one section in Spring 2010, and Instructor 3 taught two sections in Spring 2010. These five sections of the course represent 198 students. Results for Instructor 1 Instructor 1 taught two courses in the Fall Semester 2009 with an enrollment of 41 and 35 students respectively. Of the 41 students attending Class 1, four withdrew from the course. Of the 35 students enrolled in Class 2, two withdrew. The average score on the first attempt (pretest) for the classes was 62.7 for Class 1 and 63.9 for Class 2. Class 1 had a low score of 24 and a high score of 88, while Class 2 had a low score of 16 and a high score of 92. The number of students obtaining a perfect score for the basic skills test on their passing attempt was 4 for Class 1 and 6 for Class 2. The median number of attempts on the test was three for both classes. The following tables indicate the number of times a student attempted the basic skills test. Instructor 1 Class 1 # of Attempts # of Students 1 0 2 16 3 17 4 3 5 0 6+ 1 Gave Up 0 Withdrew 4 Results for Instructor 2 Instructor 2 taught one course in the Spring Semester 2010 with an enrollment of 41 students. Of the 41 students attending this class, one withdrew from the course. The average score on the first attempt (pretest) for the class was 66.1. This class had a low score of 20 and a high score of 88. The number of students obtaining a perfect score for the basic skills test on their passing attempt was 10. The median number of attempts on the test was two. The following table indicates the number of times a student attempted the basic skills test. Instructor 2 Class # of Attempts # of Students 1 0 2 21 3 11 4 7 5 1 6+ 0 Gave Up 0 Withdrew 1 30 GAMTE Proceedings 2010 Instructor 3 Class 2 # of Attempts # of Students 1 1 2 3 3 16 4 10 5 5 6+ 2 Gave Up 1 Withdrew 2 Results for Instructor 3 Instructor 3 taught two courses in the Spring Semester 2010 with an enrollment of 41 and 40 students respectively. Of the 41 students attending Class 1, three withdrew from the course. Of the 40 students enrolled in Class 2, two withdrew. The average score on the first attempt (pretest) for the classes was 66.0 for Class 1 and 67.1 for Class 2. Class 1 had a low score of 32 and a high score of 100, while Class 2 had a low score of 24 and a high score of 96. The number of students obtaining a perfect score for the basic skills test on their passing attempt test was 5 for Class 1 and 7 for Class 2. The median number of attempts on the test was three for both classes. The following tables indicate the number of times a student attempted the basic skills test. Instructor 3 Class 1 # of Attempts # of Students 1 4 2 4 3 13 4 11 5 3 6+ 1 Gave Up 2 Withdrew 3 Notice in the tables that a small number of students (2 for Class 1 and 1 for Class 2) “gave up” and never achieved the minimum score. These students attended the entire course, but realized they were not meeting the minimum grade of C for the course. Instructor 3 analyzed the number of problems missed on the basic skills test to determine the hardest problems. For the 81 students in these classes, the table on the following page illustrates the problem number and how many times the problem was answered incorrectly on the first attempt and on the passing attempt. The least missed problem on both the first attempt and the passing attempt was #22. This problem required the student to convert a decimal number to a percent. The top four most missed problems on the first attempt were #10, 7, 9, and 20 with #10 being missed the most. The top four missed problems for the passing attempt were these same four problems in a slightly different order (#20, 7, 10, and 9 with #20 being missed the most). Problems #7 and #9 involved multiplying and dividing decimal numbers, problem #10 required knowledge of least common multiples, and problem #20 asked students to multiply mixed numbers. It is also interesting to note that problems #15 and 18 share the next two locations in the list. Problem 15 asked students to convert a fraction to decimal form, while problem 18 had students subtract mixed numbers. GAMTE Proceedings 2010 31