Are there any winners in high-stakes mathematics testing? A qualitative case study exploring student, parent and teacher attitudes towards NAPLAN numeracy tests in years 3 and 5

Through the annual implementaion of National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), testing of mathematical standards across Australia invokes questions about the impact that high-stakes testing has for the teaching and learning of mathematics. According to recent studies on high-stakes testing, the role of the teacher is instrumental in children\u27s achievement results. The purpose of this case study is to explore perspectives about NAPLAN from key participants at one Western Australian Primary School, namely: students, teachers, and parents. The paper will report on the extent to which instructional pedagogy at one school has been affected by the implementation of NAPLAN testing and subsequent publication of results. Consistent with a phenomenological perspective, the qualitative data for this investigation were collected through semi-structured interviews and field notes. These data offered particular insights into how key participants viewed the impact of NAPLAN testing has had on the instructional pedagogy in Year 3 and Year 5 classrooms

The experience of education: the impacts of high stakes testing on school students and their families

This study lays bare Australian educator’s perspectives of NAPLAN testing and its unintended effects on schooling and student well-being. The report draws on the experience of over 8,300 teachers and principals across the country, surveyed at the time of the NAPLAN testing in mid-May, 2012. It probes the impact of NAPLAN on testing, pedagogy and curriculum practice as well as the more difficult (and largely ignored) question of the impact on students’ health and well-being. &nbsp

Spinning in the NAPLAN ether: 'Postscript on the control societies' and the seduction of education in Australia

This paper applies concepts Deleuze developed in his ‘Postscript on the Societies of Control’, especially those relating to modulatory power, dividuation and control, to aspects of Australian schooling to explore how this transition is manifesting itself. Two modulatory machines of assessment, NAPLAN and My Schools, are examined as a means to better understand how the disciplinary institution is changing as a result of modulation. This transition from discipline to modulation is visible in the declining importance of the disciplinary teacher/student relationship as a measure of the success of the educative process. The transition occurs through seduction because that which purports to measure classroom quality is in fact a serpent of modulation that produces simulacra of the disciplinary classroom. The effect is to sever what happens in the disciplinary space from its representations in a luminiferous ether that overlays the classroom

Growing up in Australia: the longitudinal study of Australian children (LSAC)

This report uses National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) data in the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) to provide an in-depth understanding of children\u27s development in Australia\u27s current social, economic and cultural environment, thereby contributing to the evidence base for future policy and practice development. The study was conducted in partnership between the Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA), the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), with advice provided by a consortium of leading researchers from research institutions and universities throughout Australia. The study commenced in 2004 with the recruitment of two cohorts: one cohort of 5,107 children aged 0–1 year old (the birth or “B cohort”) and another of 4,983 children aged 4–5 years old (the kindergarten or “K cohort”) and their families across all states and territories of Australia. Interviews comprising different instruments are conducted with families every two years

Dodgy data, language invisibility and the implications for social inclusion: A critical analysis of indigenous student language data in Queensland Schools

As part of the ‘Bridging the Language Gap’ project undertaken with 86 State and Catholic schools across Queensland, the language competencies of Indigenous students have been found to be ‘invisible’ in several key and self-reinforcing ways in sch

Mathematics, computers in mathematics, and gender: public perceptions in context

In Australia, national tests of mathematics achievement continue showing small but consistent gender differences in favor of boys. Societal views and pressures are among the factors invoked to explain such subtle but persistent differences. In this paper we focus directly on the beliefs of the general public about students’ learning of mathematics and the role played by computers, and then we compare the findings with data previously gathered from students. Although many considered it inappropriate to differentiate between boys and girls, gender based stereotyping was still evident

NAPLAN scores as predictors of access to higher education in Victoria

Abstract: This paper examines the extent to which year-9 performance on the National Assessment Program—Language Arts and Numeracy (NAPLAN) predicts access to higher education as determined by subsequent achievement on year-12 Victoria Certificate of Education (VCE) exams. VCE performance is measured via three binary indicators: achieving an Australian tertiary admission rank (ATAR) above 50 ("ATAR50"), above 70 ("ATAR70"), and above 90 ("ATAR90"); and two continuous indicators: ATAR and the Tertiary Entrance Aggregate (TEA). We find that a four-way classification of year-9 NAPLAN results explains 35% of the  variance in ATAR50, 37% in ATAR70 and 26% in ATAR90; and NAPLAN scores and basic demographic indicators explain 38% of the variance in ATAR and 42% of the variance in TEA values. Examining the joint effect of year-9 NAPLAN scores and socio-economic status in predicting VCE outcomes, we find that while both are significant, NAPLAN scores have a much stronger effect. At the school level, we find that predictions of success rates based on NAPLAN scores and basic demographic indicators

Development of an ongoing national data collection on the educational outcomes of children in child protection services: a working paper

This working paper provides an overview of a proposed national linked dataset on the educational activity and outcomes of children while in child protection services, to allow ongoing and longitudinal monitoring of the academic progress, and to better inform policy, practice and planning of activities to support these children.Summary Background Improving the educational outcomes of children involved in statutory child protection services has been a high priority for Australian governments in recent years. The inclusion of education-specific national indicators in the National Framework for Protecting Australia\u27s Children 2009-2020 and the National Standards for out-of-home care means the implementation of an ongoing national data collection on the educational outcomes of children in the care of the state has increased in importance and urgency. Such a collection would allow ongoing and longitudinal monitoring of academic progress, to better inform policy, practice and planning of activities to support these children. This working paper sets out a proposed national methodology for reporting on the educational outcomes of children in child protection services. The former CDSMAC (now SCCDSAC) funded the AIHW to develop this methodology in collaboration with jurisdictions.Proposed methodology National reporting on the educational outcomes of children in care can be best achieved through linking the Child Protection National Minimum Data Set (CP NMDS) with a national set of education data (an \u27Education Module\u27, see Section 2). The CP NMDS is the \u27base\u27 data set for the Education Module and will be used to identify in-scope children. In line with the National Standards for out-of-home care, the population scope of the Education Module would be children aged 0-17 years whose care arrangements have been ordered through the Children\u27s Court, where parental responsibility for the child or young person has been transferred to the Minister/Chief Executive. A range of relevant administrative data sets which capture information across the primary and secondary schooling years have been identified, from which data could be sourced for the Education Module (see Section 2 for details). Undertaking data linkage at the national level will allow the use of nationally-consistent linkage processes to improve match rates and efficiency. The AIHW is a Commonwealth- accredited Data Integration Authority, and therefore well-positioned to undertake this linkage work for the Education Module. A phased approach to implementation is recommended, commencing with linkage between NAPLAN data and CP NMDS data (Phase 1, further described in Section 3). The Education Module could then be expanded following the successful completion of Phase 1.Phase 1 implementationHigh-level support from both the child protection and education sectors will be required to implement the Education Module, which would involve national-level data linkage. In- principle support for the implementation of Phase 1 (further described in Section 3) was received from the appropriate national community services and education committees in early 2013-SCCDSAC, and the Australian Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs Senior Officials Committee (AEEYSOC). The AIHW has received funding from SCCDSAC to roll out Phase 1 over a period of 18 months, commencing in September 2013