An Analysis of Mathematics Questions of the TPESE Exam According to Cognitive Levels of TIMMS 2015

The purpose of the study is to compare TEOG Exam Mathematics Questions and TIMSS-2015 8th-grade Mathematics Questions by classifying them based on TIMSS-2015 cognitive domains. For this purpose, document analysis method was used. The study is limited to 240 mathematics questions included in TEOG exam and TEOG make-up exam applied to 8th -grade students between 2013 - 2016 and 212 items included in TIMSS-2015 8th grade Math achievement test. The research data were obtained by the researchers and 3 experts based on the TIMSS-2015 cognitive domain coding scheme. The findings of experts are evaluated by taking codes' percentages and frequencies. At the result of the study process; it is illustrated that 42.5% of TEOG and TEOG make-up exam Math questions belongs to "Knowing", 45.5% of it belongs to "Practice" and 12% of it belongs to "Reasoning" cognitive domain steps. Findings shows that 31% of the items in TIMSS 2015 8th grade Mathematics achievement test are related to Knowing, 45% of it related to Practice and 24% of it related to "Reasoning" cognitive domain levels. In the TEOG exams, questions that measure high-level thinking skills are less than in the TIMSS exam. The majority of the TEOG questions (88%) measure low-level skills. Moreover, as a result of testing with chi-square distribution that the cognitive percentages of the TIMSS-2015 Mathematics questions and the TEOG exam Mathematics questions are significantly different. In other words, they do not match with each other cognitively. On the other hand, Mathematics questions in TEOG and TEOG make-up exam matches with each other cognitively.