Australia needs a new national assessment system rather than reforms to the current NAPLAN system, according to a new report from the Gonski Institute for Education.
The damaging effects of NAPLAN could be avoided by moving to sample testing of students, says a submission to governments by the Gonski Institute for Education at UNSW Sydney.
The latest Gonski review of education released this week will help return the focus to supporting individual students through good teaching, writes Adrian Piccoli.
Differences in educational practices between Victoria and NSW could explain declines in Australian students’ mathematics performance in international test scores, according to research led by UNSW.
Many low-scoring students think they’ve done better than they actually have, meaning they’re more likely to take risks in testing situations, write Jihyun Lee and Lazar Stankov.
Different NAPLAN questions for low and high achievers is beneficial for assessing how students at each end of the spectrum are going, write Jihyun Lee and Lazar Stankov.
If you make school funding contingent on achieving good numeracy and literacy test scores then those thresholds will likely be met. The trouble is it might not be because of any genuine improvement, writes Richard Holden.
NAPLAN is a high-stakes test - schools are held publicly accountable for its results - and high-stakes tests are known to lead to unethical, unscrupulous, and sometimes corrupt behaviour, writes Leila Morsy.
