Education Commons^™

The Southern And Eastern Africa Consortium For Monitoring Educational Quality (Superseded Version), Australian Council For Educational Research

Assessment GEMS

The Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) carries out large-scale cross-national research studies in member countries in the Southern and Eastern Africa region. It aims to assess the conditions of schooling and performance levels of learners and teachers in the areas of literacy and numeracy. SACMEQ has completed three cross-national educational research projects so far at five- to six-year intervals (SACMEQ I, 1995-1999, SACMEQ II, 1998-2004 and SACMEQ III, 2005-2010). It is currently implementing the fourth project.

Mteg Afghanistan 2013 : Preliminary Database For Grade 6, Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

Monitoring Trends in Educational Growth (MTEG)

This is the the preliminary database for the Grade 6 Afghanistan Monitoring Trends in Educational Growth (MTEG) results. Published also at: https://www.acer.edu.au/files/AFG_MTEG_G6_DATABASE.zip

Literacy And Numeracy Test For Initial Teacher Education Students. Assessment Framework, Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

Assessment and Reporting

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) was contracted by the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) to develop the assessment framework and the pools of assessment items for the first two years of implementation of an assessment of aspects of literacy and numeracy for students enrolled in initial teacher education courses. The program is known as the literacy and numeracy test of initial teacher education students (LANTITE). The framework begins by giving some background and context to the development of a literacy and numeracy test for students enrolled in initial teacher education courses. Following this are separate …

Uwezo: Monitoring Children’S Competencies In East Africa, Acer

Assessment GEMS

Uwezo, meaning ‘capability’ in Kiswahili, is an initiative in which the competencies of schoolaged children in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are measured to obtain information that encourages changes in educational policy and practice. Uwezo began as a four-year initiative (2009–2013) and it is envisaged that it will run for at least another five-year period (Uwezo, 2011). Uwezo’s goal is to contribute to the improvement of the quality of education. Annual household surveys are implemented to assess the basic literacy and numeracy competencies of school age children across Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Uwezo believes that this information will raise public awareness …

The 'Literacy' Idea, Ross Turner

Assessment GEMS

A central reason why researchers and practitioners refer to domain literacy is to draw attention to the kinds of things students learn in the domain. In a traditional learning domain the focus might be on the acquisition of discrete facts, skills and procedures that have little obvious connection or utility. In a learning domain with a literacy orientation, the focus is on applying the domain’s facts, skills and procedures to support creativity and inventiveness, to solve novel problems and to deal with the kinds of challenges that life presents outside the classroom. In the case of mathematics, for example, a …

The Annual Status Of Education Report Survey: Monitoring Learning Levels Of Children In Rural India, Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

Assessment GEMS

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) survey is a household-based survey of school-aged children in all rural districts in India. It is the only annual survey that yields data on children’s basic learning levels in this country. It evolved out of the work of a non-governmental organisation called Pratham. The ASER survey aims to obtain reliable, district-level estimates of the status of rural children’s school enrolment and skills in reading and arithmetic, and to measure the change in these estimates over time.

Measure For Measure : A Review Of Outcomes Of School Education In Australia, John Ainley, Eveline Gebhardt

Assessment and Reporting

There have been a plethora of research reports providing information about the achievements of students in Australian schools and how those achievements differ among jurisdictions and among groups of students. However, each report has often been viewed in isolation from other similar studies. This report is intended to provide an integrated appraisal of the results of the international and national achievement surveys conducted since 1994 but with some references to earlier studies. In addition to limiting the task to manageable proportions, this time span corresponds to the widespread introduction of modern measurement methods so that there is a better basis …

A Teacher's Guide To Pisa Reading Literacy, Sue Thomson, Kylie Hillman, Lisa De Bortoli

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This report focuses on Australian students' performance on the PISA items that have been released in reading literacy. It includes an overview of the PISA Reading Framework, Australia's results in the PISA 2009 international assessment , examples of responses and marking guides, and the context behind achievement, e.g. enjoyment of reading, how often they read and high-level strategies for learning.

Making A Difference : Improving Outcomes For Indigenous Learners, Michele Lonsdale

Indigenous Education Research

This publication highlights ACER’s contributions to Indigenous Educational research over the past decade. This contribution has included research, policy analysis, program evaluation, professional development, and the development of assessment tools and other resources.

Footprints In Time : Who Am I? And Renfrew Word Finding Vocabulary Test : Report On Wave 2 Data, Sarah Buckley, Catherine Underwood, Nola Purdie

Indigenous Education Research

This report presents the results of administration of the Who Am I? and the Renfrew Word Finding Vocabulary Test for the LSIC Wave 2 data collection in 2009. Who am I? is a developmental assessment that requires the child to write their name, copy shapes, write letters, numbers and words in a small booklet, with simple instructions and encouragement from the interviewer. Who am I? is not language dependent and is suitable for children with limited English. The assessment takes about 10 minutes to complete and is suitable for preschool children and children in the first two years of …

Preparing Australian Students For The Digital World : Results From The Pisa 2009 Digital Reading Literacy Assessment, Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

In PISA 2009, the assessment of digital reading literacy was offered as an international option for the first time. The digital reading literacy assessment assessed 15-year-old students’ ability to read, understand and apply digital texts. Australia and eighteen other countries or economies participated in this assessment. This report presents the results of the PISA digital reading literacy assessment for Australia. It presents the results for Australia as a whole, and where relevant makes comparisons to the other participants in the study. Results are also reported for the Australian states and territories and for different social groups within Australia. Overall, Australian …

How Well Do Young People Deal With Contradictory And Unreliable Information On Line? What The Pisa Digital Reading Assessment Tells Us, Tom Lumley, Juliette Mendelovits

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

There is sometimes an assumption that young people, as ‘digital natives’, are able to use online information effectively, including selecting and negotiating digital texts that are not only relevant for what they need, but also are likely to provide reliable information. This paper examines the question of how well young people are in fact able to recognise whether information is likely to be trustworthy. While some small-scale work has been done in this area, this paper draws on data from the first large-scale international assessment of online reading, the Digital Reading Assessment (DRA) that was part of the Organisation for …

Print And Digital Reading In Pisa 2009 : Comparison And Contrast, Juliette Mendelovits, Dara Ramalingam, Tom Lumley

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

PISA was administered for the fourth time in 2009. Since in each administration, one of reading, maths or science is chosen as the major domain, the 2009 survey marked the first time that a domain (in this case, reading) was revisited as the major focus of the assessment. This allowed a full review of the framework for reading literacy and the inclusion of new elements to reflect the way that reading has changed since 2000 (OECD, 2009). One such change is the increasing prevalence of digital texts. The assessment of digital reading in the PISA 2009 cycle, undertaken by 19 …

Australian Core Skills Framework (Acsf), Philippa Mclean, Kate Perkins, David Tout, Kath Brewer, Linda Wyse

Transition and Post-School Education and Training

The Australian Core Skills Framework (ACSF) provides a rich, detailed picture of real life performance in the five core skills of: Learning, Reading, Writing, Oral Communication and Numeracy.

These skills are essential for individuals to participate effectively in our society. They are inextricably interwoven into all parts of our lives, being directly or indirectly linked to the physical, social and economic wellbeing of individuals, workplace productivity and safety, community interaction and capacity, and ultimately to Australia’s economic and community wellbeing. The ACSF reflects contemporary use of English in Australia.

The ACSF has been developed to facilitate a consistent national approach …

Enhancing Education, Sheldon Rothman, David Slattery, Sarah Buckley, John Ainley

Indigenous Education Research

The ‘Little children are sacred’ report concluded that improving the quality of education provided the key to solving, or at least ameliorating, the incidence of child sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities. The report identified poor educational outcomes as being at the heart of the exclusion of Aboriginal people from confidently participating in either their own culture or mainstream culture.

Two years after the release of the ‘Little children are sacred’ report and after the introduction of the NTER, data were collected on the health and development of all Australian children. Data from the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) …

Literacy And Numeracy Learning: Lessons From The Longitudinal Literacy And Numeracy Study For Indigenous Students, Nola Purdie, Kate Reid, Tracey Frigo, Alison Stone, Elizabeth Kleinhenz

ACER Research Monographs

In 2000, ACER commenced the Longitudinal Literacy and Numeracy Surveys for Indigenous Students (ILLANS), which set out to track the development of English literacy and numeracy skills in a group of Indigenous students from school entry through the early years of schooling and beyond, to establish a data-rich picture of educational opportunities for Indigenous students. Phase 1 of ILLANS collected data from Indigenous students at 13 schools across Australia that had been nominated by education systems as examples of good practice in education for Indigenous students. The first three years of the study were reported in the monograph Supporting …

Improving Educational Outcomes In The Northern Territory : Preliminary Advice To The Northern Territory Department Of Education And Training, With A Particular Focus On The Ongoing Improvement Of Students’ Literacy And Numeracy Achievements, Geoff N. Masters

School and system improvement

The primary focus of this review is on strategies for improving literacy and numeracy outcomes in the Northern Territory. Clearly, the role of school education is much broader than the development of students literacy and numeracy skills, but these are foundational skills on which almost all other school learning is based. It is also clear from research that low levels of literacy and numeracy by the middle years of school are associated with lower school completion rates and a range of post-school outcomes, including higher levels of unemployment, lower lifetime earnings, and poorer health outcomes. Although the primary focus of …

Pisa 2009 Plus Results : Performance Of 15-Year-Olds In Reading, Mathematics And Science For 10 Additional Participants, Maurice Walker

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international comparative survey of 15-year-olds’ knowledge and skills in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy. PISA seeks to measure how well young adults have acquired the knowledge and skills that are required to function as successful members of society. As part of the PISA 2009 survey, students completed an assessment on reading literacy, mathematical literacy and scientific literacy, as well as an extensive background questionnaire. School principals also completed a survey describing the context of education at their school, including the level of resources in the school and qualifications of staff. …

Challenges For Australian Education : Results From Pisa 2009 : The Pisa 2009 Assessment Of Students' Reading, Mathematical And Scientific Literacy, Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Marina Nicholas, Kylie Hillman, Sarah Buckley

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

Focusing on reading literacy as the major domain for the PISA 2009 assessment, this national report examines Australian students' achievement in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy. Results are reported for the states, by gender, for Indigenous students, by location, language background and by socioeconomic background.

Qepr Review Of Progress: Review Of Progress Towards Implementing The Government Response To The Queensland Education Performance Review And Related State School Initiatives In Literacy, Numeracy And Science, Geoff N. Masters

Assessment and Reporting

This review was undertaken at the request of the Director-General of the Queensland Department of Education and Training. It reviews progress and makes recommendations ‘about initiatives aimed at improving the performance of Queensland students in literacy, numeracy and science’. More specifically, the Terms of Reference for the review requested an analysis and recommendations relating to:

• the effectiveness of the initiatives implemented in the Government response to the five recommendations of the Queensland Education Performance Review (QEPR); and
• the effectiveness of identified key initiatives in Queensland state primary schools to improve performance in literacy, numeracy and science.

The review was asked …

Successful Sustainable Literacy Practice For Indigenous Students, Nola Purdie

Indigenous Education Research

The author discusses current approaches to the literacy education of Indigenous students within the context of best practice literacy education for all students. Issues addressed include: Literacy and disadvantaged groups; Literacy programs for Indigenous Australian Students; Teachers and literacy learning; Assessment and measurement of literacy learning; and good literacy curriculum.

Literacy And Numeracy Diagnostic Tools : An Evaluation, Margaret Forster

Monitoring Learning

Within the context of a national drive to improve literacy and numeracy learning, the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) is looking at the possibility of developing a set of literacy and numeracy diagnostic tools for use in Australian schools. This scoping study—a relatively small scale piece of work designed as a first step from which DEEWR might move forward—is not a direct study of ‘what works to improve literacy and numeracy’. Its focus is on the identification and evaluation of the print and on-line literacy and numeracy diagnostic tools used currently in Australian schools. Particular attention is …

Research Digest Edition 2007/1 : Writing To Learn, Marion Meiers, Pat Knight

Research Digest

This edition of the Research Digest summarises key research studies that provide evidence of the potential of writing-to-learn approaches in improving student learning in a range of subject areas. The research tells us that writing-to-learn strategies can be used by any teacher, in all subject areas, and at all levels of schooling. Throughout the digest there are descriptions of a range of writing-to-learn strategies that demonstrate possibilities for classroom practice. This research digest is based on searches of a number of databases and bibliographic resources, including the Australian Education Index, ERIC, Education Research Complete, British Education Index and Scopus. The …

Teaching Reading: Literature Review: A Review Of The Evidence-Based Research Literature On Approaches To The Teaching Of Literacy, Particularly Those That Are Effective In Assisting Students With Reading Difficulties, Ken Rowe, National Inquiry Into The Teaching Of Literacy (Australia)

School and system improvement

Underlying a key purpose of the present review is the conviction that claims about what constitute effective literacy teaching, and of reading in particular, should be grounded in findings from rigorous evidence-based research. To this end, the present review of the research literature on teaching practices for students, with and without reading difficulties, relies largely, though not exclusively, on well-designed meta analytic syntheses that: (a) partial out methodological artefacts from the effect sizes; and (b) base their analyses on the actual procedures and components of instruction used in the studies reviewed. Following a brief outline of the background and purposes …

Teaching Reading: Report And Recommendations, Ken Rowe, National Inquiry Into The Teaching Of Literacy (Australia)

School and system improvement

The objectives of the Inquiry were to review and analyse recent national and international research about literacy teaching approaches; identify the extent to which prospective teachers are provided with reading teaching approaches and skills that are effective in the classroom and have the opportunities to develop and practise the skills required to implement effective classroom reading programs; identify the ways in which research evidence on literacy teaching and policies in Australian schools can best inform classroom teaching practice and support teacher professional learning; examine the effectiveness of assessment methods being used to monitor the progress of students' early reading learning; …

Pisa In Brief From Australia's Perspective: Highlights From The Full Australian Report: 15-Up And Counting, Reading, Writing, Reasoning... How Literate Are Australia's Students?, Acer

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This pamphlet summarises results from PISA 2000. It tells us about how students performed and describes wider findings about what lies behind their results. The pamphlet focuses on Australia’s results, including how the Australian students performed in comparison with students from other countries. The full Australian report is called '15-Up and Counting, Reading, Writing, Reasoning … How Literate are Australia’s Students?' http://research.acer.edu.au/indigenous_education/7

PISA 2000 assessed students’ capacities to apply knowledge and skills in reading, mathematics and science. More assessment time was given to reading.

Language Implications For Numeracy: A Study Of Language Use Of Disadvantaged Students, Robyn Zevenbergen

2000 - Improving Numeracy Learning

Increasingly language is recognised as causing difficulties for students when they come to learn mathematics. Many different levels and aspects of language can be seen to create such difficulties for students. This paper looks at the implications of language on learning mathematics or developing a sense of numeracy.

Literacy Standards In Australia, Geoff N. Masters, Margaret Forster

Monitoring Learning

This publication reports the percentages of year 3 and year 5 students meeting clear performance standards in reading and writing based on the 1996 National School English Literacy Survey. The performance standards described and illustrated in this report are informed by work to develop 'benchmarks' in literacy and numeracy under the direction of the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs. Examples of survey assessment tasks and student work samples are provided to illustrate performance standards for year 3 and year 5 students.

Mapping Literacy Achievement: Results Of The 1996 National School English Literacy Survey: Incorporating A Report On The Survey Principles, Procedures And Findings, Geoff N. Masters, Margaret Forster

Monitoring Learning

The national school English literacy survey conducted in 1996 provides the most comprehensive picture yet developed of the literacy achievements of Year 3 and Year 5 students in Australian schools. The most significant finding of the survey is the wide range of literacy achievement among Australian children. The top ten per cent of students in each year are working about five year levels ahead of the bottom ten per cent. This range indicates the complexity of the teacher's task in providing appropriate learning opportunities for all students, and the need for schools to reflect on the implications of this range …

Profiles Of Learning. The Basic Skills Testing Program In New South Wales 1989, Geoff N. Masters, Janice Lokan, Brian Doig, Siek Toon Khoo, John Lindsey, Lynette Robinson, Susan Zammit

Assessment and Reporting

The 1989 Basic Skills Testing Program in New South Wales provides the most comprehensive picture yet compiled of literacy and numeracy learning in Australian primary schools. In 1989, some 53,800 Year 6 students in NSW government schools were tested in five aspects of literacy and numeracy. Another 2,300 Year 3 students took part in a pilot study. This book discusses the writing of the tests, the analysis of results, and the reporting of results to parents, teachers and schools. The aim of the basic skills tests is to describe, in positive terms, the skills that students have mastered, to identify …