COGNITIVE AND STRUCTURAL DIMENSIONS OF ECONOMIC REASONING IN STANDARDIZED MATHEMATICS EXAMINATIONS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SAT AND NATIONAL CERTIFICATION SYSTEMS

This study examines how economic reasoning is structurally embedded in two high-stakes mathematics examination systems: the SAT and a national certification examination. Although economic contexts frequently appear in standardized mathematics assessments, limited research has comparatively analyzed how such tasks differ in structural modeling depth and optimization orientation. Drawing on research in mathematical reasoning and cognitive demand, this study introduces the Economic Reasoning Assessment Framework (ERAF) to classify economic-context items according to four levels of structural complexity. A qualitative document analysis was conducted on 20 examination items (12 SAT, 8 national certification). The results indicate a clear structural contrast. In the SAT dataset, 75% of items were concentrated in Levels 1 and 2, emphasizing applied proportional reasoning and constraint-based modeling, while only 8% reached Level 4 optimization structures. In contrast, 50% of national certification items were classified as Level 4, reflecting explicit profit maximization and formal analytical reasoning. These findings suggest that although both systems incorporate economic contexts, they differ in the depth and structural orientation of economic reasoning they operationalize. The ERAF framework provides a structured lens for comparative analysis of task design in standardized mathematics assessments.