Measuring student's computer science knowledge at the end of the primary stage in Hungary

Abstract

Computer science knowledge in the 8th grade in Hungary was analysed, in order to see the differences in informatics skills of students from different school types. The student's knowledge should be level with each other at the end of primary stage, not depending on school type, because their learning material is based on the National Curriculum: this was the starting hypothesis. Why is this important? Because teachers at grammar schools have to know the knowledge of entering students; what have they to teach for all of them, do they have to group students according to their knowledge level, is there any difference in knowledge level by school types, if so, does it require a special course to smooth differences or not? An analysis of informatics skills by schooltypes in primary stages was made with the help of a web based Informatics Test. An on-line test based on the Hungarian National Curriculum was composed, and answers were analysed how effectively could students from different grades deal with different subjects. Over 60 teachers used the test to measure the knowledge level of more than 1000 students from various towns of Hungary. This time only those answers were needed which came from the 8th grade. After evaluating the test results the correctness of the original presumption emerged. First the Kolmogorov-Smirnov-test was used to see if the results of the various groups showed standard normal distribution or not. The means of the correct answers by school types were examined using an Independent samples tests and the calculated Eta-squared revealed how school types influenced the differences of means. Significance level was 5% throughout the analysis. Significant divergence by school types was not found showing the original hypothesis correct. Further, some differences were found between the taught material and that of the National Curriculum.