Assessed competences

French reading comprehension

The test evaluating French reading comprehension in grade 9 (5ème) is based on the two sub-skills “identifying and understanding information presented in a text” and “analysing / interpreting texts and drawing conclusions by activating previous knowledge”. There are continuous (e.g. literary or factual texts) and discontinuous text forms (e.g. tables, illustrations or assembly instructions). Each test provides between five and eight texts consisting of an average length of 100 to 750 words and dealing with topics such as hobbies, society, friendship or vocational training. There are three different test versions according to the school tracks “Enseignement secondaire classique”, „Enseignement secondaire général – voie d‘orientation“ and „Enseignement secondaire général – voies d’adaptation et de préparation“. To allow for comparability, the test material comprises a required minimal number of anchoring texts and questions overlapping between the three versions.

German reading comprehension

The test evaluating German reading comprehension in grade 9 (5ème) is based on the two sub-skills “identifying and understanding information presented in a text” and “analysing / interpreting texts and drawing conclusions by activating previous knowledge”. There are continuous (e.g. stories or factual texts) and discontinuous text forms (e.g. tables, illustrations or assembly instructions). Each test provides between five and eight texts consisting of an average length of 100 to 750 words and dealing with topics such as hobbies, society, friendship or vocational training. There are three different test versions according to the school tracks “Enseignement secondaire classique”, „Enseignement secondaire général – voie d‘orientation“ and „Enseignement secondaire général – voies d’adaptation et de préparation“. To allow for comparability, the test material comprises a required minimal number of anchoring texts and questions overlapping between the three versions.

Mathematics ability

The test evaluating mathematical skills in grade 9 (5ème) contains tasks referring to the following four areas of competency: “numbers and operations”, “figures of plane and space”, “dependence and variation” and “data”. The tasks are divided into four levels of difficulty depending on the complexity of the task and the requested response, such as the number of calculations to be performed or the number of digital units to be processed. There are three different test versions according to the school tracks “Enseignement secondaire classique”, „Enseignement secondaire général – voie d‘orientation“ and „Enseignement secondaire général – voies d’adaptation et de préparation“. To allow for comparability, the test material comprises a required minimal number of anchoring texts and questions overlapping between the three versions. To reduce the influence of reading

comprehension on mathematical tasks, students can choose to solve tasks in German or French.

Test development and pre-testing

The tests evaluating language and mathematical skills are drawn up by experienced elementary and secondary school teachers together with scientific staff from LUCET. New items are continuously developed for the ÉpStan every year. To validate the content, format and practicability of the newly developed test material, it must be tested on students at the relevant grade level. After the competence tests, therefore, a pre-test is arranged where students answer the new test material. Students’ performance in the pre-test is not included in the ÉpStan results and is not reported back, as the focus here is on the testing and the psychometric evaluation of the new items rather than on individual performance.