QUALITY OF MATHEMATICS ASSESSMENT ITEMS BASED ON THE REVISED BLOOM’S TAXONOMY IN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLS OF KAMONYI DISTRICT, RWANDA

The cognitive demands of mathematics assessment items influence how effectively assessments represent foundational knowledge, procedural competence, and higher-order thinking skills. This study analyzed the cognitive levels represented in teacher-set mathematics assessment papers from selected upper secondary schools in Kamonyi District, Rwanda. A qualitative content-analysis design was used to examine six archived assessment papers purposively selected from three schools across the 2022–2023 and 2023–2024 academic years. Items were classified into remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating using the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy and a Table of Specifications (TOS). The observed distributions were compared with the benchmark adopted in the study’s TOS. Across 74 classified items, applying was the most frequent category, accounting for 52 items (70.3%). Remembering accounted for 9 items (12.2%), understanding for 6 (8.1%), analyzing for 2 (2.7%), evaluating for 3 (4%), and creating for 2 (2.7%). Four papers contained no items classified as analyzing, evaluating, or creating; one contained a single evaluating item; and one included items in all six categories, although their distribution was uneven. The findings indicate that the sampled assessment papers did not consistently represent the full range of cognitive processes specified in the study’s TOS. The study recommends strengthening assessment literacy, promoting systematic use of tables of specifications, and providing professional development on constructing mathematics items across a broader range of cognitive demands. Because the analysis covered six papers from three purposively selected schools in one district, the findings describe the selected materials and should not be generalized statistically to all upper secondary schools in Rwanda.