Education Commons^™

Diversity In Australian Education, Stephen Dinham

School and system improvement

Stephen Dinham describes the characteristics of the Australian school system, particularly the latest developments in the area of curriculum and professional training.

Highlights From Timss 2007 From Australia’S Perspective: Highlights From The Full Report, Taking A Closer Look At Mathematics And Science In Australia, Sue Thomson, Nicole Wernert, Catherine Underwood, Marina Nicholas

TIMSS 2007

In 2007, Australia participated in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS 2007). TIMSS 2007 is the fourth in a cycle of internationally comparative assessments conducted under the aegis of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) dedicated to improving teaching and learning in mathematics and science for students around the world. Carried out every four years at Year 4 and Year 8, TIMSS provides data about trends in mathematics and science achievement over time. In Australia, TIMSS is part of MCEETYA’s National Assessment Program. To inform educational policy in the participating countries, this world-wide …

Timss 2007: Taking A Closer Look At Mathematics And Science In Australia, Sue Thomson, Nicole Wernert, Catherine Underwood, Marina Nicholas

TIMSS 2007

The Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS 2007) is the latest in a series of international studies of mathematics and science, conducted under the aegis of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). The goal of TIMSS is to provide comparative information about educational achievement across countries to improve teaching and learning in mathematics and science. TIMSS measures trends in mathematics and science achievement at Year 4 and Year 8, as well as monitoring curricular implementation. Conducted on a regular four-year cycle, TIMSS has assessed mathematics and science in 1995, 1999, 2003, and 2007. In addition …

Output Measurement In Education, Andrew Dowling

Policy Analysis and Program Evaluation

Governments can no longer justify their performance in education in terms of inputs; that is, in terms of the amount of new money they have provided, or the number of new teachers they have employed, or the range of new computers they have installed. It has been observed that ‘today, educators need to show how they have transformed current and new dollars into student achievement results, or the argument that education needs more - or even the current level of - money will be unlikely to attract public or political support’. Output measures, particularly those related to student achievement, are …

Indigenous Languages Programmes In Australian Schools - A Way Forward, Nola Purdie, Tracey Frigo, Clare Ozolins, Geoff Noblett, Nick Thieberger, Janet Sharp

Indigenous Education Research

Currently, over 16,000 Indigenous students and 13,000 non-Indigenous students located in 260 Australian schools are involved in an Indigenous language program. More than 80 different Indigenous languages are taught. This project sought to present practice which would strengthen the quality of Indigenous language programs in schools. The report consists of a literature review, a mapping exercise to document current practices relating to Indigenous languages in Australian schools, an analysis of existing models of teacher preparation, and six case studies of good practice examples.

Reporting And Comparing School Performances, Geoff N. Masters, Glenn Rowley, John Ainley, Siek Toon Khoo

Assessment and Reporting

This report provides advice on the collection and reporting of information about the performances of Australian schools. The focus is on the collection of nationally comparable data. Two purposes are envisaged: use by education authorities and governments to monitor school performances and, in particular, to identify schools that are performing unusually well or unusually poorly given their circumstances; and use by parents/caregivers and the public to make informed judgements about, and meaningful comparisons of, schools and their offerings. Our advice is based on a review of recent Australian and international research and experience in reporting on the performances of schools. …

The Occupations And Earnings Of Young Australians : The Role Of Education And Training, Gary Marks

LSAY Research Reports

This report investigates the effect of post-secondary education and training on the occupation and earnings of young people. The majority of young Australians undertake further education and training after leaving school, and it is important to better understand the pathways that they follow, and the impact of different types of experience on the early career. Such analyses can help young people in choosing appropriate programs as well as assist policy makers in identifying resource priorities. They can also contribute to debates about the role of education in promoting social mobility and economic development. The data analysed are from a sample …

Digital Learning: An Australian Research Agenda, Gerald K. White

Digital learning research

The purpose of this paper is to provide some suggestions for consideration of directions for Australian educational research about ICT in education, more recently being called digital learning. A number of agencies in Australia, Canada, Europe, New Zealand, the UK, and the USA have already embarked on developing research agendas and undertaking research into the use of digital learning. This report highlights some of the significant areas in which research has been undertaken and isolates those areas where there may be a need for further research or where there are gaps in the research agenda for Australia. This paper is …

School Experiences Of 15 And 16 Year-Olds, Catherine Underwood, Sheldon Rothman, Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

LSAY Briefing Reports

This Briefing provides a summary of students’ experiences at school and their attitudes and perceptions of these experiences at ages 15 and 16. It is based on information obtained in both years from these young people who participated in PISA in 2003 and are now part of the LSAY 2003 cohort. Table 1 shows the distribution, by year level, of the cohort in both 2003 and 2004.

Initial Educational Experiences Of Tertiary Students, Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

LSAY Briefing Reports

This Briefing presents information about the initial tertiary education experiences, such as satisfaction with aspects of student life and changes to initial enrolments, of two groups of young people, based on two recent LSAY research reports. One study focussed on the first year experiences of a group of young people who completed Year 12 in 2001 and entered tertiary education (university and TAFE) the following year.In this study, TAFE students who were enrolled in traineeships or apprenticeships were excluded from the analyses. The second study examined course changes and attrition from university study among a group of young people who …

Participation In Vet In Schools, Hamish Coates, Sheldon Rothman

LSAY Briefing Reports

This Briefing looks at participation in VET in Schools programs by members of three groups of young people who have been part of LSAY since 1995, when VET in Schools offerings experienced sustained growth. The first group comprises young people who were in Year 9 in 1995 and included VET subjects as part of their Year 11 or Year 12 studies in 1997 and 1998. The second group comprises young people who were in Year 9 in 1998 and included VET subjects as part of their senior secondary studies in 2000 and 2001. Both of these groups participated in VET …

Participation In Vocational Education And Training To Age 24, Sheldon Rothman, Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

LSAY Briefing Reports

University study holds a distinct place in Australian society, as it provides a pathway into professional occupations. University graduates are consistently shown to have superior outcomes, in terms of employment and earnings. Does VET study provide an equivalent pathway for young people interested in non-academic careers? Are there similar benefits for those who participate in VET programs? The data for this Briefing are from the 1995 cohort of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY). The findings reported here are from three recent LSAY research reports, which are listed at the end of this Briefing. The cohort comprises young people …

Career Advice In Australian Secondary Schools: Use And Usefulness, Sheldon Rothman, Kylie Hillman

LSAY Research Reports

This report examines young people’s participation in career advice activities while at school and their perceptions of the usefulness of the advice they receive. The data are from the 2003 15 yearold cohort of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY). Most members of this LSAY Y03 cohort were in Year 10 in 2003. The present report examines how much career advice students accessed in Years 10, 11 and 12 across three years of data collection (2003–2005). A smaller group of the cohort is followed each year; this group was in Year 10 in 2003, Year 11 in 2004, and …

School Non-Completers: Profiles And Initial Destinations, David D. Curtis, Julie Mcmillan

LSAY Research Reports

This study examines non-completion of Year 12 at school for a nationally representative sample of young people who were 15 years old and still attending school in 2003. The study explores relationships between non-completion and selected socio-demographic and school-related factors, and changes in rates of school non-completion from the early 1980s to 2005. There is a particular emphasis on how socio-demographic and school-related factors over that period have influenced early school leaving. This study also examines the use of an alternative measure of ‘school completion’, which incorporates participation in a vocational education and training program after leaving school.

What Do Teachers Know, Think And Intend To Do About Adhd?, Julie Kos

School and system improvement

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a common childhood disorder affecting approximately 5% of primary school-aged children. The disorder is characterised by severe difficulties in one or more of three areas; inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. Considering that primary school teachers are often the first to notice behavioural difficulties in children, it is surprising that relatively little research has been undertaken with teachers. The limited research that has been conducted on teachers’ knowledge has shown that knowledge scores range from 50 to 70%, and most attitudinal research has merely assessed knowledge. There is also a dearth of research assessing teachers’ classroom management of …

University Study In Australia: Persistence, Completion And Beyond, Julie Mcmillan

LSAY Briefing Reports

The data for this Briefing were collected from two LSAY cohorts: the Year 9 class of 1995 and the Year 9 class of 1998. Information on the education and labour market activities of these groups has been collected annually. The findings reported here follow the experiences of university entrants from these groups up to age 23. The findings are discussed in further detail in three recent LSAY research reports on the first year experience (Hillman, 2005), university completion (Marks, 2007) and unmet demand (Marks, 2005). Earlier LSAY research, based upon previous groups of young people followed over longer periods of …

Constructing A Described Achievement Scale For The International Civic And Citizenship Education Study, Julian Fraillon

Civics and Citizenship Assessment

This paper presents a draft described civic and citizenship cognitive achievement scale based on the International Civics and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) field trial cognitive test items and student achievement data. The paper briefly outlines the process of generating the described scale before presenting and examining the substance of the scale. The scale is based on data from the 80 test items used in the ICCS field trial that have been included in the ICCS main survey test instrument. The described scale comprises four discrete described achievement levels that are further articulated by examples of achievement. Key aspects of the …

Questionnaire Construct Validation In The International Civic And Citizenship Education Study, Wolfram Schulz

Civics and Citizenship Assessment

International studies tend to use student, teacher or school questionnaires for the collection of contextual data on student or teacher characteristics, background, activities and the school's learning environment. Furthermore, student measures of values, attitudes and behavioural intentions are also frequently viewed as important learning outcomes, in particular in the context of studies of civic and citizenship education. Data obtained from these instruments become frequently important predictors of student performance or are treated as learning outcome variables of interest. Therefore, the scaling of questionnaire items to obtain measures of students', teachers' and principals' perceptions and attitudes should ideally be subject of …

Vet Pathways Taken By School Leavers, David D. Curtis

LSAY Research Reports

This report examines the vocational education and training (VET) pathways pursued by young people since leaving school. It investigates the characteristics of those who pursue VET, their persistence in those programs, and the labour force and related outcomes that they experience following their VET participation. The investigation uses data collected as part of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) program. It is based on survey data collected annually since 1995 from young people who were in Year 9 at school at that time (the Y95 cohort). Their progress through school, into any postschool education they had undertaken by 2001 …

A Longitudinal Study Of Growth In Literacy And Numeracy In The Primary School Years, Marion Meiers

Monitoring Learning

This paper reports on a seven-year longitudinal study. In 1998 an extensive investigation of the nature of growth in literacy and numeracy across the years of primary school was established at ACER as a national longitudinal study. It was intended that scales of developing literacy and numeracy achievement would be developed within this study, making it possible to show growth from the first year at school until the end of primary school.

Supporting New Teachers In Victorian Schools : Making The Teacher Registration Process An Opportunity For Professional Learning, Elizabeth Kleinhenz, Lawrence Ingvarson, Jenny Wilkinson

Teacher education

The VIT Standards and Professional Learning Project was seen to be leading to improvements in teaching practice across schools and playing a major role in reinforcing and/or establishing a culture of professional collaboration and professional learning in schools. That is likely to lead to improved student outcomes. The role of the school leadership is clearly very important in this as in any other major innovation. Principals and mentors were very positive about the program, and consistently reported higher levels of satisfaction with its implementation than did the Provisionally Registered Teachers. Primary teachers were in general more positive than secondary teachers. …

Participation In Science, Mathematics And Technology In Australian Education, John Ainley, Julie Kos, Marina Nicholas

ACER Research Monographs

This report was commissioned to update and extend the Background Data and Analysis component of the report, Australia’s Teachers: Australia’s Future – Advancing Innovation, Science, Technology and Mathematics (Committee for the Review of Teaching and Teacher Education, 2003a) that informed the Main Report (Committee for the Review of Teaching and Teacher Education, 2003b). In the five years since the 2003 review, there have been developments in science, technology and mathematics education that have been impacted on by initiatives in policy and practice as well by changes in the context. So that changes in science, technology and mathematics education can be …

Supply, Demand And Approaches To Employment By People With Postgraduate Research Qualifications In Science And Mathematics: Literature Review And Data Analysis, Daniel Edwards, T Fred Smith

Higher education research

This report is the first in a project that investigates the demand for and supply of people with science and mathematics postgraduate qualifications in Australia. This report is divided into two main parts: a literature review and a data analysis. The report uses numerous national data sets to present a picture of the supply, demand and employment dynamics of postgraduates in the natural and physical sciences in Australia. The figures indicate an increasing number of postgraduates are completing studies in these fields. However, compared with other fields of education, supply in the natural and physical sciences is increasing at a …

Enhancing The Engagement Of Distributed Learners, Hamish Coates

Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE)

For much of the twentieth century it was conventional practice to distinguish between ‘on-campus’ and ‘external’ or ‘distance’ forms of higher education. This distinction has blurred both in theory and practice over the last few decades, with an increase in what may be referred to as ‘distributed’ forms of learning and higher education. In Australia and New Zealand today, very few students spend significant amounts of time on campus. According to results from the 2007 Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) around three-quarters (77%) report spending no more than 10 hours per week on campus outside of formal classes. Just …

X, Y And Z: Three Decades Of Education, Employment And Social Outcomes Of Australian Youth, Sheldon Rothman, Kylie Hillman

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

This paper focuses on three decades of findings from Australian longitudinal studies of adolescents and their transitions from secondary school to further education and training and the labour force. The presenters examine trends in young people’s participation in the post-compulsory years of school; completion of Year 12; participation in and completion of various forms of further education and training; employment rates and earnings; and leaving home and family formation. The data for this presentation come from a number of longitudinal survey programs, which are part of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth. The oldest cohort comprises young people who were …

Specifying And Assessing Knowledge And Skills For Life, Geoff N. Masters

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

In my presentation to this year’s Research Conference I will be taking as my starting point the proposition that a fundamental purpose of schooling is to provide every student with knowledge and skills to equip them for life beyond school. While acknowledging that schooling has broader purposes, I will argue that there are some fundamental understandings and skills that all students should develop during their school years, and that every student should be expected to demonstrate an acceptable level of these skills and understandings by the time they leave school.

An International Perspective On Civic And Citizenship Education: Exploring The Learning Context For Lower Secondary Students, Wolfram Schulz, Julian Fraillon

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

The purpose of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) is to investigate, in a range of countries, the ways in which young people are prepared and consequently ready and able to undertake their roles as citizens. In pursuit of this purpose, the study will report on student achievement, student activities, value beliefs, behavioural intentions and attitudes related to civic and citizenship education. The collection of contextual data will help to explain variation in these outcome variables. This paper describes how the learning context for civic education is explored in the ICCS survey. It outlines the conceptual framework, the …

Touching The Future : Building Skills For Life And Work (Conference Proceedings), Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

This conference addressed the theme of the skills and dispositions that young people need to participate effectively in work and society and the role of educators to nurture the development of those skills and dispositions.

The conference featured four keynote and 12 concurrent sessions. The full conference proceedings and individual papers, some PowerPoint presentations can be downloaded below. Podcasts of selected sessions are also available from this repository.

A Longitudinal Investigation Of Literacy Achievement And Development In The First Three Years Of School, Marion Meiers

Monitoring Learning

This paper describes a longitudinal study of literacy development in the early years of schooling. Monitoring the development of children’s literacy learning in the early years of school poses challenges for educational researchers, including the need for appropriate strategies for identifying the full range of literacy knowledge and skills demonstrated by young learners. The seven-year national ACER Longitudinal Literacy and Numeracy Study (LLANS) followed the growth in literacy of a single cohort of students across the years of primary school (Meiers, Khoo et al, 2006). A key research question in this study was: “What is the nature of literacy development …

Harnessing Educational Cooperation In The Eas For Regional Competitiveness And Community Building, Phillip Mckenzie, Robert Horne, Andrew Dowling, Adrian Beavis

International Education Research

At the Second East Asia Summit (EAS) meeting held in 2007, the 16 Country Leaders agreed to strengthen regional educational cooperation. Acting on behalf of the EAS, the ASEAN Secretariat has commissioned this project to develop strategies for EAS participants to enhance regional economic competitiveness and strengthen community building in a balanced and sustainable manner through cooperation in education. The project’s scope encompasses regional cooperation in basic education (primary and secondary), technical and vocational education and training, and higher education. This report draws on a literature review of experiences with international educational cooperation, analysis of published data, consultations with education …