ARTICLES
Five Things We Wouldn ’ t Know Without NAPLAN
By Peter Goss
NAPLAN testing happens the second full week of May each year . Michael Coghlan
NAPLAN , the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy , has been a prominent part of Australia ’ s education landscape since 2008 , when it was introduced by then Education Minister Julia Gillard . It ’ s a controversial test , lauded by some but disliked by many .
Ten years on , the role of NAPLAN is under question , with some arguing it should be dropped entirely . Here ’ s why it ’ s a vital navigation tool for policy makers and researchers .
What is NAPLAN ?
Every May , Australian school students in years three , five , seven and nine sit standardised tests in reading , writing , numeracy , spelling and grammar .
A great virtue of NAPLAN is that each domain is scored on a single scale . Achievement can be compared across different school year levels , courtesy of a common learning progression for all levels of the NAPLAN tests . This lets us analyse the learning growth of specific groups of students as they move through school .
I have consistently argued the best way to lift achievement is to maximise individual learning progress . The same theme underpins the Gonski 2.0 report , and if we want to lift learning progress at scale , we must be able to measure it .
What is NAPLAN used for ?
There are many claims about the benefits of NAPLAN , each of which deserves scrutiny on its merits . For example , using NAPLAN :
• policy makers and researchers can better understand student performance , to inform system-wide policies , support and resource allocation for schools ;
• teachers can use the data as a diagnostic tool to improve teaching in the classroom ;
• parents can make more informed choices about where to send their children , via the MySchool website which publishes school-level results ;
• parents have more information about how their child is progressing relative to others .
35 SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 67 NO 2