Education Commons^™

Australian General Practice Training Program National Report On The 2018 National Registrar Survey, Rebecca Taylor, Leyna Clarke, Daniel Edwards

Higher education research

The Australian General Practice Training National Registrar Survey (AGPT NRS) is an annual, national survey of GP registrars currently training in the AGPT program. It collects information via an online questionnaire about registrar satisfaction, experience and future career plans. It also collects information about registrars’ demographics and training contexts and other aspects of their training experience. This survey was previously known as the AGPT Registrar Satisfaction Survey (AGPT RSS). From July 31 to September 7 2018, the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) administered the AGPT NRS to registrars enrolled in active training on the AGPT program across 11 training …

Queensland Teacher Workload Study: Final Report To The Queensland Teachers’ Union, Sheldon Rothman, Lawrence Ingvarson, Darren Matthews

Teacher workforce and careers

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) conducted an online survey of members on behalf of the Queensland Teachers’ Union (QTU). The survey was open to teachers, school leaders (principals and assistant principals) and heads of program working in Queensland government schools. It was based on one conducted for the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union (AEU) in 2016 and the AEU – Tasmanian Branch in 2017. The survey of the work of union members in Queensland government schools focussed on the hours of work by school staff, staff perceptions of their work, and the relationship between work practices …

Scottish National Assessments: National Report For Academic Year 2017 To 2018, Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

Assessment and Reporting

This report has been developed to provide a summary of outcomes at a national level on the newly established system of national standardised assessments, which has since been termed ‘Scottish National Standardised Assessments’ (SNSA) in the 2017 to 2018 academic year, the first year of the programme. A central aim of SNSA is also to provide information on the outcomes of Scottish children and young people in literacy and numeracy over time. The assessments have been available for use in publicly funded schools in Scotland since August 2017. They are administered to children and young people in Primary 1, Primary …

The Japan University Experience Survey (Jues), Darren Matthews, Leyna Clarke

Higher education research

An overview of the Japan University Experience Survey (JUES) including its background and aims, and the ACER - Kawaijuku Group partnership. The presentation discusses the development, delivery, reporting and results of the survey, and considers Japanese and Australian UES/SES comparisons and the potential for benchmarking.

Stem: What’S Holding Females Back?, Sue Thomson

Teacher columnist - Sue Thomson

While the 20th century saw women stride ahead in their participation in education and the workforce, there are still gender differences apparent in some areas of education. In particular, females do not enrol in higher mathematics, science, or ICT, or move into STEM-based careers to the same extent as males. We rightly celebrate great achievements for women in science, such as the Nobel Prizes awarded in Physics to Donna Strickland and in Chemistry to Frances Arnold this year, but why are these achievements such a rarity?

Gonski, Learning And The Case For Change, Geoff Masters

Teacher columnist – Geoff Masters

The Gonski 2.0 recommendations may provide our best hope of reversing the long-term decline in the reading, mathematics and science levels of Australian 15-year-olds. A notable feature of Gonski’s report was that it looked at learning from the perspective of learners and recognised that the way we currently organise the school curriculum disadvantages some students.

Pisa Australia In Focus Number 4: Anxiety, Marina Schmid

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

The pressure to get good grades is one of the most frequently cited sources of stress for school age children and adolescents (OECD, 2017). Both schoolwork-related anxiety and test anxiety have been shown to have a negative impact on student academic performance and general well-being. As students move into the later years of schooling, the academic demand on them increases and they are expected to manage this along with their emotional responses to it. Alongside the assessments of students’ performance in reading, mathematics and scientific literacy, PISA also collects information about their experiences of schooling – their worries, their interests …

Validating Professional Standards For Teachers: A Practical Guide For Research Design: Snapshot Literature Review, Jen Jackson, Yung Nietschke

Teaching standards and teacher evaluation

This report aims to establish a strong evidence base for planning a validation study of professional standards for teachers. It presents findings from a rapid "snapshot" review of relevant research literature, to identify previous examples of validation studies, and extract lessons from these about worthwhile methods and considerations in research design. This review was originally conducted to inform the design of a validation study of the draft Myanmar Teacher Competency Standards Framework, but may also have wider relevance to other education systems pursuing similar standards-based reforms. This report presents findings from the literature review. It is divided into four sections: …

Acer 2016-2017 Annual Report, Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

ACER Annual Reports

No abstract provided.

Integrating The Findings From The National Assessment Of Student Achievement Into The Policy Process: An Experience From Nepal, Lekha Nath Poudel, Gopal Prasad Bhattarai

Assessment and Reporting

This paper presents the experiences from Nepal on how the findings from the National Assessment of Student Achievement (NASA) have been integrated into policy processes. The purpose of this brief paper is twofold: to give an overview of the process of the National Assessment of Student Achievement, and to describe how the results were disseminated to different stakeholders to incorporate the findings into the design of policy processes. In doing so, the case study highlights how the assessment findings have been used to design and implement policies and programs in education.

Using The Principal Performance Improvement Tool, Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

School and system improvement

The Principal Performance Improvement Tool (PPIT) has been developed to assist school principals and others who aspire to this role to reflect on their current leadership practices. The tool is informed by international research into the kinds of leadership that result in improved teaching and learning. It also draws heavily on the lived experiences of practicing school principals. This booklet is a brief introduction to the PPIT.

Pisa Australia In Focus Number 3: Motivation, Catherine Underwood

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has collected information about student motivation in each cycle, but the types of motivation focused on has varied over the cycles in line with the major domain (or the main focus) of the assessment for that cycle – reading, mathematical or scientific literacy. The focus of PISA 2015 is on science learning. It collected data about students’ achievement motivation in relation to science learning using their responses to the following five items measured on a four-point Likert scale (strongly agree; agree; disagree; and strongly disagree): I want top grades in most or all …

Lower-Secondary Students’ Civic Engagement At School: Results From Iccs 2016, Wolfram Schulz

Civics and Citizenship Assessment

Based on survey data from the latest implementation of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2016), this paper explores the extent of students’ civic engagement at school, their beliefs about their own ability to engage and their perceptions of the value of student participation, as well as their willingness to engage in future civic activities at school. Where possible, it compares results with those from the previous ICCS survey in 2009, and it also analyses which factors related to home background, school context and students’ beliefs about engagement explain variation in their willingness to participate at school in …

The Role Of Evidence In Teaching And Learning, Geoff Masters

Teacher columnist – Geoff Masters

Much discussion of evidence-based teaching is based on a narrow definition that would benefit from a broader recognition of the role of evidence in teaching and learning. Professor Geoff Masters explores the role of evidence in teaching and learning at the 2018 Research Conference . Evidence-based teaching involves the use of evidence to: (1) establish where students are in their learning; (2) decide on appropriate teaching strategies and interventions; and (3) monitor student progress and evaluate teaching effectiveness.

Assessment Of University Support Services For Regional And Remote Students On Transition To University: Final Report, Darren Matthews, Gina Milgate, Leyna Clarke

Higher education research

This report details the development and piloting of an Assessment of university support services for regional and remote students on transition to university. The project forms part of the Australian Government’s response to the Independent Review into Regional, Rural and Remote Education led by Emeritus Professor John Halsey. In its recommendations, the Review highlighted how critical it is to “Support RRR [regional, rural and remote] students to make successful transitions from school to university, training, employment and combinations of them”. In relation to this recommendation, this project is designed to support the Australian Government’s response to the Halsey Review by …

Young People’S Attitudes Towards Freedom Of Movement And Immigration In Europe. Results From Iccs 2016, Wolfram Schulz, Sladana Krstic

Civics and Citizenship Assessment

This paper will describe in a comparative perspective the extent to which young people endorse freedom of movement and equal rights and opportunities for immigrants, both across countries as well as with results from the previous ICCS survey in 2009 (Kerr, Sturman, Schulz, & Burge, 2010). The analyses presented in this paper will be based on surveys of lower-secondary students (13-15 years of age) across 14 European countries participating in ICCS 2016. They will be conducted in two stages. In a first step, descriptive results will be presented in comparative perspective across countries as well as with the previous survey …

Learning Progressions In Acer's Work, Charlotte Waters

Monitoring Learning

This document has been developed to provide background to ACER’s learning progressions; to explain the terminology that is being used in this work; and to describe how learning progressions are being incorporated into various aspects of ACER’s work.

Measuring Parent Engagement, Sheldon Rothman, Clare Ozolins, Jo Doyle

Early Childhood Education

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), working with the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY), undertook the task of creating a set of measures of parents’ engagement in their children’s learning. The aim was to develop a tool that individual schools could use to measure their efforts in parent engagement and monitor those efforts. A second aim was to use the data from the tool to examine the conceptual model of parent engagement previously published by ARACY and whether it fit with the data collected through the tool. The intended result was an evidence-informed definition of parent …

What Remuneration Levels Should Apply To Highly Accomplished And Lead Teacher Certification, Lawrence Ingvarson

Teacher workforce and careers

This expert witness report was commissioned by the Queensland Teachers’ Union in April, 2018 as part of evidence to be presented in a submission to the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission. The purpose of this report was to review research that would assist the Commission in arriving at its decision regarding appropriate remuneration levels for certified Highly Accomplished and Lead Teachers.

Designing Rubrics For Authentic Assessment, Kathryn Richardson, Anne-Marie Chase

Teacher education

This presentation looks at the steps in developing authentic rubrics, from determining the constructs that will be assessed; breaking down the constructs into a set of broad capabilities that need to be observed; transferring capabilities into indicative behaviours (indicators or criteria); and determining the different levels of proficiency.

Pisa Australia In Focus Number 1: Sense Of Belonging At School, Lisa De Bortoli

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

PISA has established a profile of what 15-year-old students can do and what they are like as learners. Gaining an understanding about the non-cognitive aspects, including students’ motivation, engagement and beliefs, for achieving success in school and in the future is another important goal of PISA. This report seeks to explore an aspect of students’ more general attitudes towards school, specifically their sense of belonging at school.

Students Who Like To Read – What Does The Research Say?, Sue Thomson

Teacher columnist - Sue Thomson

What do Year 4 students think about reading? Is it fun? Do they think they learn anything? Sue Thomson explores these questions in her first Teacher column.

Gonski’S Model For Schools, Geoff N. Masters Ao

Teacher columnist – Geoff Masters

The recent Gonski report calls for a new model of school education. This is a big call. What is this new model? Professor Geoff Masters AO discusses. In delivering his recent report David Gonski described the report’s recommendations as a package of reforms to underpin a new model to improve performance in Australian schools.

Single-Sex Schooling And Girls’ Achievement In Australia, Katherine Dix

Gender and education

Data from research studies such as the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and NAPLAN have been utilised to compare girls’ and boys’ academic achievement in single-sex and co-educational schools. The data sets, which inform policy monitoring by identifying key performance measures and evaluating progress towards educational goals for Australian students by international standards, are examined to identify any gender biases in Australian and international trends in reading and mathematics for Years 3-4 to Year 9 students. The effects of socio-economic status, year level and …

Challenges In Stem Learning In Australian Schools, Michael J. Timms, Kathryn Moyle, Paul R. Weldon, Pru Mitchell

Policy Insights

Australian STEM education seems caught in a whirlpool of problems that are contributing to one another. Student engagement and performance in STEM are declining, but we do not have the supply of qualified teachers we need to improve learning. The STEM curriculum is unbalanced and fragmented, leading to less interest among students. It is not possible to break out of the downward cycle from within the current system and it requires policy changes that address the issues raised in this report. This means developing well-considered, systemic and joined-up policies that address the following challenges: Improving student outcomes, building the STEM …

The Unesco Institute For Statistics Reporting Scales: Concept Note, Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

Monitoring Learning

Measurement of learning achievement is essential to monitor how well education systems are delivering on the promise of universal quality education. This promise is reflected in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Number 4 (Target 4.1): By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes. Goal 4 can only be meaningful if there is a shared global understanding of quality education, and relevant and effective learning. The various indicators associated with SDG Target 4.1 attempt to translate its key constructs into measurable outcomes against …

Sharing Session #2: Penilaian Pendidikan Berbasis Kinerja [Performance Based Educational Assessment], Acer Indonesia

Assessment and Reporting

Topik untuk Sharing Session ini adalah mengenai Penilaian Berbasis Kinerja di Ruang Kelas: (i) Apa yang dimaksud dengan PBK, (ii) bagaimana cara kita mendesain penggunaannya di ruang kelas, serta (iii) apa saja ragam teknik penerapannya. Topik ini menarik untuk diangkat karena sepertinya ada demand untuk memahami dengan lebih baik cara penerapannya di kegiatan pembelajaran. Seperti sudah kita ketahui bersama, Kurikulum 2013 menerapkan model pembelajaran yang menekankan pada pencapaian kompetensi peserta didiknya. Metode pembelajaran seperti ini tentunya memerlukan metode penilaian yang berbeda dari sebelumnya. Karena tidak semata menghitung jumlah jawaban benar atau salah di atas kertas, tapi bagaimana guru mampu menilai …

Challenges In Stem Learning In Australian Schools: Literature And Policy Review, Michael J. Timms, Kathryn Moyle, Paul R. Weldon, Pru Mitchell

Policy Analysis and Program Evaluation

This literature and policy review outlines the complex context related to STEM learning in Australian schools and focuses on student outcomes, the teacher workforce and the curriculum. This paper also sheds light on possible policy directions by examining lessons from other countries. STEM education is a broad enterprise that starts in early childhood education, continues through the years of schooling and extends into tertiary education supported by contributions from extracurricular and enrichment activities, science centres and museums. However, the focus in this document is on primary and secondary schooling. Australian STEM education seems caught in a whirlpool of problems that …

What Is 'Equity' In Education, Geoff N. Masters Ao, Ray J. Adams

Teacher columnist – Geoff Masters

Equity in education is often viewed as equivalence or sameness. A more useful way to view equity is through the lens of ‘fairness’.

Learning Progressions As An Inclusive Solution To Global Education Monitoring, Ray J. Adams, Jen Jackson, Ross Turner

Monitoring Learning

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) mark a welcome shift in global discussion of education, because now we are talking not only about getting children into school, but also about making sure that they are learning. At the same time, the SDGs introduce a new layer of complexity, because we need to define what quality education means in a way that is meaningful across international contexts.

This short paper describes how the development of global learning progressions provides an innovative solution, to balance the need for flexibility and consistency in global monitoring of learning.