AFL football & Maths Assessment

If you follow AFL football you will know it has been an interesting start to the 2023 season. Some of the teams who finished quite 'low' on the ladder last year have had a promising start to the year. One such team is Essendon. I hear a fair bit about Essendon’s season as my husband is a keen supporter (and, by ‘chance’, so are my 4 children!).😂

Essendon finished in 15th position on the ladder last year (there are 18 teams in the AFL). It was a very disappointing year for all involved😉. BUT…they managed to win 4 of the first 5 matches in the 2023 season! This start provided all of the Essendon supporters in my house with a little 'spring in their step'.

On the flip side, another team, Geelong, had a less than ideal start to the season. Geelong won the premiership last year, so I’m guessing all their supporters were quietly excited about their prospects in 2023. Unfortunately, they lost their first 3 games and people were talking about a “premiership hangover”.

Now while I don’t get too involved in football, I do like watching the occasional game and keeping up with the results each round. I wouldn’t call myself a 'die hard fan', but I did have a big chat with my husband about the validity of the predictions made early in the season by Essendon and Geelong supporters. I suggested to him that early in the season win:loss ratios can give a false impression of the level of performance of a team. For example, if we dig a little deeper, Essendon 'may' have played several 'easier' teams while Geelong played more challenging teams 🤷‍♀️.

This made me think of maths assessment!

If you ask students a limited number of questions and those questions are easy, it will appear like they have an excellent understanding of the content.

Meanwhile, if you ask students a limited number of difficult questions, you will be gathering no useful information about what they know- you will only find out what they don’t know.

If we want to take the football analogy a step further, and look at the Essendon and Geelong season results purely on face value, we may have gained an incorrect indication of their true skill. In this situation it is important to apply our 'professional (unbiased) judgement' (by watching the game, considering the team they are playing, how close the scores were etc) to truly determine if our team is on track for a great season!

In many ways this is similar to what happens with some online maths assessment platforms I see used in schools. If we do not physically 'see' the items that students are completing, we cannot use our 'professional judgement' about their content, context and difficulty. The question could be poorly worded, use a context our students are not familiar with, or the content being presented could just be too easy or too difficult. Being presented with a 'score' at the end is not enough to truly make an accurate judgement on the ability of our students.

So, next time you are using an assessment, I encourage you to take the time and use your professional judgement to decide if it is really painting a full picture of your students. If the results are in contrast to what you are seeing in class, it may be a result of poor test design. Trust your 'teacher gut' and investigate further! Any assessment only provides one point of data, and that point may be accurate or inaccurate!

Have a great week!

Football update: In case you are wondering how the Geelong and Essendon 2023 season is progressing...Geelong have won the last five games in a row and have 'turned around their season' and are 'back' to their premiership form 😉. Meanwhile, Essendon have lost every game since their great start, and are still sitting on 4 wins! Let's just say the mood is a little more sombre in our house! 😉