Summary: | National tests has been carried out in fifth grade since 1996. Spring 2011 is the first year since the start, when it is no longer mandatory for Swedish schools to carry out the tests in fifth grade. Instead the tests will be moved to sixth grade, starting in spring 2012. This thesis investigates what effects the national tests has got on the teachers planning, but also what attitude the educators have to the tests. To solve the subject, teachers that are active in fifth grade and have recently carried out nationel tests in their class, were interviewed. Rather than direct questions, subjects for discussions were given to the teacher during the interview to allow them direct the conversation towards what was important to them. That facilitated the later analysis of the teachers attitude to the national tests. The interviews showed on an unexpected result. The teachers did not seam as affected by the tests as expected. Differences could be noted between more experienced teachers and teachers who had only experienced from a couple of national tests. Differences could also be noted between teachers that had experience from secondary education and those who had not. The teachers considered the tests to be a good tool and that they are fair and just since the same test is done all over the country. Common for all interviews was that non of the interviewed teachers was really positive to the tests. The main reason seamed to be that they did not consider the correction of the tests to be fair in current process. Some teachers proposed a centralised correction process or correction in special subject groups to solve these problems.
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