Academic Centrehttps://doi.org/10.22364/htqe.2023.50 | 632-644 | PDF
Pupils’ Written Language in the Latvian Language and History State Examinations in Riga in 2021
Daiga Straupeniece, Normunds Dzintars
Liepaja University, Latvia
Abstract. The research examines pupils’ text creation skills in the Latvian language and history state examinations in 2021. It compares the quality of written language in two examination papers by 15 pupils. The statistical method has been used to evaluate the types of errors in orthography and syntax and establish the frequency of the use of the language means.
Pupils’ skills in orthography vary. Only 4 examination papers in Latvian and history do not contain orthographic errors. Writing complex proper names and the use of macrons cause problems for pupils. Similarly, the skills of separate spelling of some words have been underdeveloped. Also, an unjustified lack of a letter or unjustified use of it can be observed. Pupils pay more attention to orthography in the Latvian language examination.
Pupils’ skills in syntax are also varied. Syntactical means used in text creation are uniform. In the Latvian language examination papers, 143 instances when coordinated parts of sentence were used have been registered; 78 such instances have been registered in the history examination. In both examinations, a connection of two coordinated parts with the conjunction un ‘and’ was used most frequently, with 78 cases in Latvian and 32 in history. Also, the participial clause, including the undeclinable participle with the suffix -ot and auslaut -oties, was dominant (60% in history, 40% in Latvian). In the third part of the Latvian language examination, insertions were used more often than in the history examination, 63% and 37%, respectively. Other syntactic means were rarely used.
It can be concluded that there are no significant differences in the types of orthographic and punctuation errors in the Latvian language and history examination papers; the differences are visible in the choice of language means and their quantity.
Keywords: exams, Latvian language, orthography, syntax, text.
The study has been funded by the National Research Programme “Letonika – Fostering Latvian and European Society” project Nr. VPP-LETONIKA-2022/1-0001 “Use and Development of Modern Latvian”.
Daiga Straupeniece – Dr. philol., associate professor at the University of Liepāja, researcher at the Kurzeme Humanitarian Institute, published research in linguistics, especially dialectology, interested in Latvian language methodology issues and experienced in evaluating Latvian language centralized exams.
Normunds Dzintars – Dr. philol., researcher at the Kurzeme Humanitarian Institute, published researches in linguistics, especially on methodological issues of the Latvian language, experienced in evaluating Latvian language centralized exams.
In: Human, Technologies and Quality of Education, 2023. Proceedings of Scientific Papers = Cilvēks, tehnoloģijas un izglītības kvalitāte, 2023. Rakstu krājums
Riga, University of Latvia, 2023. 796 p. Ed. L. Daniela
https://doi.org/10.22364/htqe.2023
ISBN 978-9934-36-116-6