Education Commons^™

Pisa In Brief 2022: Student Performance And Equity In Education, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Sue Thomson

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an assessment that measures the knowledge and skills of 15-year-old students, an age at which they have nearly completed compulsory schooling. PISA assesses young adults’ ability to apply their knowledge and skills to real-life problems and situations rather than how well they have learned a specific curriculum. This PISA in Brief report provides a summary of student performance in the PISA 2022 assessment and tells us about their capacity to apply knowledge and skills in the domains of reading, mathematical, and scientific literacy.

Pisa 2022. Reporting Australia’S Results. Volume I: Student Performance And Equity In Education, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Sue Thomson

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international comparative study of student performance directed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). PISA measures 3 core domains of reading literacy, mathematical literacy, and scientific literacy. The assessment focuses on young people’s ability to apply their knowledge and skills to real-world problems and situations. The term ‘literacy’ reflects a focus on broader skills. As a concept, literacy is more than simply being able to read and write. Eighty-one countries or economies, involving around 690,000 students, participated in PISA 2022. In Australia, 743 schools and a total of 13,437 …

Supporting Schools’ And Teachers’ Use Of Assessment To Inform Learning Of All Students, Ursula Schwantner, Soumaya Maghnouj

Global education monitoring

Issue 5 of the series Using assessment data in education policy and practice: Examples from the Asia-Pacific documents 4 case studies of promising and effective policies or practices on how education systems can better support teachers and schools in effectively integrating assessment practices in the teaching and learning process, to identify and meaningfully address every learner’s needs. In particular, the case studies show how different tools, approaches and policies help promote and reinforce the use of assessment to support more learner-centred and differentiated approaches to teaching and learning. 1. Using the Progressive Achievement approach to develop data-informed schools by Marc …

Reform Challenges In School Education, Geoff N. Masters

School and system improvement

The central thesis of this paper has been that the challenges now confronting schools globally will require fundamental reforms of the external frameworks within which schools work. Today’s challenges to better prepare young people for the future and to ensure that every student learns successfully will not be met by simply expecting teachers to change what they do or by making minor adjustments to current curricula, assessment, examination, reporting and credentialling arrangements. Today’s challenges require deep reforms and a willingness to reimagine—in other words, to ‘transform’ existing learning systems. This is essential because the external frameworks within which teachers and …

Teacher Development Multi-Year Study Series. Vanuatu: Final Report, Elizabeth Cassity, Debbie Wong, Jevelin Wendiady, Jennie Chainey

Education Analytics Service

The Australian Government is supporting the Government of Vanuatu through its Vanuatu Education Support Program (VESP) to undertake long-term education reforms. A key focus of these reforms is the rollout of a new national curriculum in conjunction with the National Language Policy (2012), intended to improve teaching quality and student learning outcomes for students in the primary and early secondary years of education. Part of a multi-year study series, the Education Analytics Service (EAS) is investigating how the VESP is making a difference to these teaching and learning outcomes. The new primary curriculum has been rolled out to schools in …

Teacher Development Multi-Year Studies. Insights On The Challenges Of Data Availability For Measuring And Reporting On Student Learning Outcomes, Elizabeth Cassity, Debbie Wong

Education Analytics Service

Student learning outcomes are an important source of evidence regarding improved teaching quality. A multi-year teacher development study series was commissioned by the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to investigate teacher development initiatives in Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Laos), Timor-Leste and Vanuatu. The overall aim of the study series is to understand the extent to which the Australian investment has improved teaching quality and student learning. This paper outlines the different approaches to sourcing and using data in each country context, and then presents initial insights about the challenges associated with the limited availability of data …

Reporting Student Progress: What Might It Look Like?, Hilary Hollingsworth, Jonathan Heard, Anthony Hockey, Tegan Knuckey

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

The Communicating Student Learning Progress review produced by ACER in 2019 set out recommendations for schools and systems to improve the way schools report on student learning, in particular learning progress. Two case study schools from Victoria – a Catholic primary school and government secondary school – discuss changes they’ve made to their student reporting processes, in response to the review’s recommendations. Further research is recommended into how schools are rethinking reporting to engage students and parents in monitoring learning growth.

How Might We Identify And Measure Learning Progression In History?, Louise Zarmati

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

In this session, Dr Zarmati will share her research on efforts to map and describe progress in the learning area of History.

Learning progression is a continuum that measures advances in learning by tracking development from early learning to more sophisticated levels of mastery. Mathematics relies on an understanding of empirical knowledge and concepts in a hierarchical sequence; students need to understand (or master) one mathematical concept before they can proceed to the next. In comparison, progress of understanding in history is not necessarily hierarchical because it is based on mastery of concepts and skills rather than historical knowledge, which …

Pisa 2018: Australia In Focus Number 1: Academic Resilience Among Australian Students, Sue Thomson

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

Socioeconomically disadvantaged students (i.e. those whose scores on a constructed measure of social and cultural capital are below a specified cut-off, usually the 25th percentile) have been found to be more likely to drop out of school, repeat a grade, achieve lower levels at senior secondary school, and score lower on tests such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Despite this association between socioeconomic disadvantage and poorer outcomes related to education, a percentage of students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds enjoy success at school. This apparent success despite the odds is of interest to researchers and educators alike …

Performance Comparison Between Ib And Non-Ib School Students On The International Schools’ Assessment, Ling Tan

Monitoring Learning

This report examines the performance of students enrolled in the IB Primary Years Programme (PYP) and the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) on the ACER International Schools’ Assessment (ISA) compared with non-IB students from the same ISA cohorts. The ISA is an assessment created especially for students in international schools in Grades 3 to 10. The assessment asks both multiple-choice and open-ended questions in the areas of writing, reading, mathematics and science, and provides international normative information about student performance. The ISA scales for Reading, Mathematical Literacy and Scientific Literacy are based on those developed for the internationally endorsed frameworks …

Australia: Pisa Australia—Excellence And Equity?, Sue Thomson

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

Australia’s education system reflects its history of federalism. State and territory governments are responsible for administering education within their jurisdiction and across the sector comprising government (public), Catholic systemic and other independent schooling systems. They collaborate on education policy with the federal government. Over the past two decades the federal government has taken a greater role in funding across the education sector, and as a result of this involvement and the priorities of federal governments of the day, Australia now has one of the highest rates of non-government schooling in the OECD. Funding equity across the sectors has become a …

Time For A Paradigm Shift In School Education?, Geoff N. Masters

Occasional Essays

The thesis of this essay is that the schooling paradigm is in need of review and that the answer may lie in a shift in how we think about teaching and learning. Under the prevailing paradigm, the role of teachers is to deliver the year-level curriculum to all students in a year level. This mismatch has unfortunate consequences for both teaching and learning. Currently, many students are not ready for their year-level curriculum because they lack prerequisite knowledge, skills and understandings. The basis for an alternative paradigm and a 'new normal' is presented. The essay addresses concerns raised about changes …

The Latin-American Laboratory For Assessment Of The Quality Of Education: Measuring And Comparing Educational Quality In Latin America, Australian Council For Educational Research

Assessment GEMS

The Laboratorio Latinoamericano de Evaluación de la Calidad de la Educación (Latin-American Laboratory for Assessment of the Quality of Education or LLECE) is the network of national systems for the assessment of education quality in Latin America, created in 1994, and coordinated by UNESCO’s Regional Bureau for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC). LLECE’s purpose is to produce data and knowledge that inform educational policy in the region, contribute to capacity building, and serve as a forum for reflection, exchange and generation of new ideas and good practices in education evaluation. LLECE assessments aim to provide information about …

Environmental Scan: Topical Areas To Inform A Future Review Of The Australian Professional Standards For Teachers, Kerry Elliott, Pru Mitchell, Hilary Hollingsworth, Charlotte Waters, Jenny Trevitt

Teaching standards and teacher evaluation

The brief was to conduct a broad sweep of literature that has surfaced since the publication of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers in 2011, and to consider how this literature could inform any future review of the standards. This multi-pronged scan method identified eleven topics that have increasingly influenced teachers' work over the past decade. The environmental scan report provides a critical review of current educational research and policy literature for each of the 11 topics. Findings provide a description of the topic, key sources, an outline of the changing landscape as it relates to teaching, examples of how …

Scottish National Assessments: National Report For Academic Year 2018 To 2019, Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

Assessment and Reporting

No abstract provided.

Pisa 2018: Reporting Australia’S Results. Volume I Student Performance, Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Marina Schmid

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international comparative study of student performance directed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). PISA measures the cumulative outcomes of education by assessing how well 15-year-olds, who are nearing the end of their compulsory schooling in most participating educational systems, are prepared to use the knowledge and skills in particular areas to meet real-life opportunities and challenges. The term literacy is attached to the assessment domains of reading, mathematics and science to reflect the focus on these broader skills and as a concept it is used in a much …

Pisa 2018 In Brief I. Student Performance, Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Marina Schmid

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This document provides a summary of student performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 assessment and tells us about their capacities to apply knowledge and skills in the domains of reading, mathematical, and scientific literacy. In 2018, 79 countries and economies including Australia participated in PISA. The focus of this report is Australia’s performance results in an international context. It covers Australia’s performance over time, results for the Australian states and territories, school sectors, female and male students, the geographic location of schools, socioeconomic background, Indigenous background, immigrant background and language spoken at home.

Pisa 2018: Reporting Australia’S Results. Volume I Student Performance: Data Tables [Excel] [Data Set], Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Marina Schmid

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This zipped excel file is the data behind the figures and tables in the report: PISA 2018: Reporting Australia’s Results. Volume I Student Performance. They cover Australian student performance in reading literacy, reading literacy subscales, mathematical literacy and reading literacy.

Reporting Student Learning, Hilary Hollingsworth, Jonathan Heard

NSW Curriculum Review

This paper is one of six research ‘backgrounders’ to support the 2018–20 review of the New South Wales (NSW) curriculum. It focuses on reporting student learning, which has been identified as an area of interest in the review. This paper seeks to present an evidence base, based on a rapid review of relevant research literature, to inform considerations related to student reporting practice reform.

Communicating Student Learning Progress: A Review Of Student Reporting In Australia, Hilary Hollingsworth, Jonathan Heard, Paul R. Weldon

Assessment and Reporting

The Communicating Student Learning Progress project was initiated to investigate questions relating to the effectiveness of current methods of communicating student progress, the extent to which they are valued by stakeholders, whether they are considered to provide quality information about student learning, and whether there are alternative designs for these activities that might be more effective. The project took place over a three-year period from July 2016 to June 2019.

Communicating Student Learning Progress: A Review Of Student Reporting In Australia. Findings In Brief, Hilary Hollingsworth, Jonathan Heard, Paul R. Weldon

Assessment and Reporting

The Communicating Student Learning Progress project was initiated to investigate questions relating to the effectiveness of current methods of communicating student progress, the extent to which they are valued by stakeholders, whether they are considered to provide quality information about student learning, and whether there are alternative designs for these activities that might be more effective. The project took place over a three-year period from July 2016 to June 2019.

The Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics Program: Thinking Globally In A Regional Context, Unicef, Southeast Asian Ministers Of Education Organization (Seameo)

Assessment and Reporting

The Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) program is a regional assessment that aims to set a common approach to assessing the learning outcomes of students at Grade 5. As an alternative to international large-scale assessments and national assessments, SEA-PLM has developed a set of assessment and survey instruments for the Southeast Asian region. Designed to be a system-level monitoring tool of educational quality and equity, SEA-PLM covers four domains: mathematics, reading, writing and global citizenship. The assessment also includes questionnaires that gather important contextual information from students, parents, teachers and school principals. A key feature of the SEA-PLM assessment …

Options For Reporting Against 4.1.1 When Using National Assessment Programs, Goran Lazendic

Assessment and Reporting

The Sustainable Development Goals are 17 broad aspirations for social and economic development set by the United Nations in 2015. One of these goals, enumerated SDG 4, is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. The progress towards each goal is measured by a set of indicators. In monitoring progress towards SDG 4, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) is working on an approach to measuring indicator 4.1.1: Proportion of children and young people: (a) in grades 2/3; (b) at the end of primary; and (c) at the end of lower secondary achieving …

Feeling Safe At School – What Does The Research Say?, Sue Thomson

Teacher columnist - Sue Thomson

Most people would argue that children should feel safe at school. For some children, school is possibly the only place in which they feel safe. However, when we see reports of school shootings and large-scale violence in school communities in other countries, we are reminded that this is not universal. On a more day-to-day level, bullying, and cyberbullying in particular, can significantly influence students’ perceptions of school safety. However, the ramifications of bullying on students’ levels of stress and wellbeing are not always considered as elements of school climate.

Pisa 2018 Australia School Questionnaire Data [Spss] [Data Set], Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Marina Schmid

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This dataset (SPSS zipped) is a data source for the report: PISA 2018: Reporting Australia’s Results. Volume I Student Performance.

Pisa 2018 Australia School Questionnaire Data [Sas] [Data Set], Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Marina Schmid

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This dataset (SAS zipped) is a data source for the report: PISA 2018: Reporting Australia’s Results. Volume I Student Performance.

Pisa 2018 Australia Student And Achievement Data [Sas] [Data Set], Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Marina Schmid

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This dataset (SAS zipped) is a data source for the report: PISA 2018: Reporting Australia’s Results. Volume I Student Performance.

Pisa 2018 Australia Student And Achievement Data [Spss] [Data Set], Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Marina Schmid

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This dataset (SPSS zipped) is a data source for the report: PISA 2018: Reporting Australia’s Results. Volume I Student Performance.

Growth To Achievement: On-Demand Resources For Teachers, Christine Cawsey Am, John Hattie, Geoff N. Masters Ao

Monitoring Learning

A central finding of the Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools (the Excellence Review) was that learning progressions can help teachers tailor their teaching to support students’ achievement through continuous learning growth. Aligned, online and on-demand assessments, combined with professional learning and resources, will aid the use and interpretation of learning progressions in order to maximise the learning growth and attainment of every student every year. The Commonwealth Minister for Education and Training has established an expert reference panel to shape a shared vision for this important work and provide advice on how to take it forward. The …

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 …