Study on Mathematics Skill of Sixth-Grade Students in Rural China Based on Cognitive Diagnostic Models

Cognitive diagnosis models (CDMs) represent an emerging evaluation theory. They enable the identification of students’ mastery of fine-grained knowledge points, thereby facilitating the description of learning trajectories, which can in turn assist teachers in instructional planning. This study investigates the mathematics skills of rural primary school pupils in China by applying a cognitive diagnostic model to assess the mathematical competencies of sixth-grade students. The findings indicate that the learning trajectory of these rural students is non-linear. Overall, their mathematics skills are generally suboptimal. Performance is strongest in text comprehension, knowledge and concepts, and computation, but weakest in spatial imagination.