Education Commons^™

Pisa 2022. Assessing Creative Thinking For A Better Future, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

Creative thinking was assessed as an innovative domain for the first time in PISA 2022. This report presents the creative thinking results for Australia as a whole, for the Australian states and territories and for the other groups in PISA 2022. It is one of two thematic reports providing additional high-level analysis of Australia's 2022 PISA performance. Differences in results are only reported if tests of statistical significance showed that these were likely to be real differences; that is, differences were unlikely to be caused by chance.

Infographic: World Teacher’S Day 2024 – What You Love About Teaching, Dominique Russell

Teacher infographics

Today is World Teacher’s Day in Australia. The annual day is celebrated throughout October across the globe. In our latest annual reader survey, we asked you to tell us what you love about your role, and in this infographic, we share some responses from our readers around the world.

Infographic: Learning Beyond The Classroom, Dominique Russell

Teacher infographics

When you’re planning a unit of work for your students, there may be opportunities to include a local trip to support the learning outcomes. Recent research from ACER shows the most popular local learning destinations in Australia and New Zealand for some schools participating in Children’s University, a program designed to engage students aged 5-18 in out-of-school learning enrichment activities.

Infographic: Closing The Gap Report 2024, Dominique Russell

Teacher infographics

Australia's latest Closing the Gap Report communicates progress towards government targets to achieve equality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in areas like education, health and employment. Here are some of the education results and how they compare to the baseline year data.

Global Synthesis Report. Methodology, Australia Awards Global Tracer Facility

Australia Awards Global Tracer Facility

This is a Methodology Report that provides background and detail of the approach taken by the Australia Awards Global Tracer Facility in developing a synthesis of its eight years of research work for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Detail about the Australia Awards Global Tracer Facility can be found here.

Infographic: Creative Thinking In Classrooms – Encouragement + Time, Jo Earp

Teacher infographics

Do you encourage your students to come up with original answers? Do you also give them enough time to be creative in assignments? Our latest infographic looks at data from the PISA 2022 creative thinking questionnaire. We look at 10 of the participating countries and economies, and the percentage of students who agreed with the 2 statements about encouragement and time.

Improving Educator Readiness To Support Student Mental Health, Anna Dabrowski, Michelle Hsien, Tamara Van Der Zant, Syeda Kashfee Ahmed, Amy Berry, Maya Conway, Yung Nietschke

Wellbeing

This project used a mixed-method approach to understand educator readiness to support student mental health across early childhood, school based, and tertiary settings. The study features educators and relevant support staff working with children, adolescents, and adults in formal learning settings. Relevant experts such as mental health care workers, youth wellbeing support staff, counsellors, psychologists, and other professionals involved in education settings were also invited to take part in the study. Three research questions guided the focus of the study: How does educator anxiety and worry impact on their ability to support student mental health? To what extent are educators …

Infographic: Climate Change Education Around The World, Max Hughes

Teacher infographics

Climate change education provides students with the knowledge required to understand and practice climate action. Several UNESCO studies offer international insights into what students know, how confident teachers are on the topic, teacher training plans and current curriculum content. Find out more in this infographic.

Submission To The National Skills Taxonomy Discussion Paper, Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

Shaping educational policy

This brief submission in response to the National Skills Taxonomy (NST) Discussion Paper relates to the vision for the NST (2.3), relative to other parts of the skills system architecture; and design considerations that support NST’s alignment to other taxonomies (3.1).

Cis Pedagogy Project Report, Sladana Krstic, Elizabeth Stubbs, Colin Watson

Student learning processes

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) was contracted by the Council of International Schools (CIS) to undertake research investigating how their schools make decisions on pedagogical approaches and to develop a toolkit (published as the ‘Pedagogy Playbook’) to support schools in making those decisions. The project started in May 2022 with initial research conducted by the Klingenstein Center, Columbia University and completed in August 2024 by ACER. In this study, leaders, teachers, parents and students from more than 140 CIS member schools reflected on what matters when it comes to teaching and learning. They shared their priorities and decisionmaking …

Infographic: Australian School Growth, Dominique Russell

Teacher infographics

The annual Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) report on the number of schools, students and staff across Australia in 2023 has been released. In this infographic, we look at some of the latest figures and compare them to the same figures recorded for 2022.

Unpacking The Science Of Reading Research, Greta Rollo, Kellie Picker

Literacy and numeracy

The science of reading (SoR) is a term used for a body of evidence encompassing multi-disciplinary research from education, cognitive psychology, linguistics, and neuroscience. This evidence points to six key constructs that contribute to proficient reading: oral language, phonological awareness including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and reading comprehension. Research around these constructs provides researchers and teachers with an evidence base of the knowledge, skills and strategies involved in competent reading and describes how reading develops in both typical and atypical readers. This paper synthesises evidence reviews conducted by ACER researchers that unpack the science of reading. The aim of …

Monitoring Learning In The Early Years. A Review Of Early Childhood Assessments To Support Global Monitoring, Dan Cloney, David Jeffries, Stephanie Templeton, Ursula Schwantner, Juliette F. Mendelovits, Amy Berry, Syeda Kashfee Ahmed, Nicola Andrews, Bethany Davies

Global education monitoring

Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. In relation to Early Childhood Education (ECE), SDG Target 4.2 aims to “ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education”. To operationalise this goal, the primary Indicator 4.2.1 sets out to measure the “proportion of children aged 24–59 months who are developmentally on track in health, learning and psychosocial well-being, by sex". The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is the custodian of …

Sustainable Development Goal 4.B In The Pacific – A Pilot Study For Monitoring Tertiary Education Scholarships For Development, Amanda Haddow, Daniel Edwards, Lorissa Hazelman

Global education monitoring

United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. SDG 4 includes 10 targets, of which Target 4.b aims to expand higher education scholarships for developing countries. Target 4.b leverages the benefits of international education to support countries in achieving SDG 4. For host and sending countries, the exchange of students across borders shares the societal benefits produced by tertiary education (knowledge, information, innovation) (Perna et al., 2014). The modality of scholarships broadens access to high-quality tertiary education in areas necessary for locally-led development and provides opportunities …

Being And Becoming Global Citizens: Measuring Progress Toward Sdg 4.7. Monitoring Teacher And School Readiness To Enact Global Citizenship In The Asia-Pacific Region. Phase Ii Report, Lao Pdr, Rachel Parker, Payal Goundar, Karena Menzie-Ballantyne

Global education monitoring

This report presents the Phase II findings of a collaborative study by APCEIU and ACER which aims to expand efforts to monitor Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.7 by addressing critical evidence gaps regarding country participation and educational settings. Phase I of this study included three countries in the Asia-Pacific region (Australia, Philippines and South Korea) and targeted primary school settings. Phase I answered research questions about the enabling conditions that support effective global citizenship education (GCED); how these conditions can inform instrument development to measure system, school, and teacher readiness to implement GCED; and recommendations for Phase II. Phase II …

Putting Creative Thinking At The Core Of The English School Curriculum: An Exploratory Study, Sladana Krstic

Assessment and Reporting

Across much of the world, in more than 20 educational jurisdictions, the ability to think creatively is seen as a core aspect of what it is to be a successful learner today and, consequently, it has been included within various national curricula (Taylor et al., 2020). In England this is not yet the case, despite strong arguments being made for creative thinking being a core part of the curriculum in the Durham Commission on Creativity and Education (2019). In 2023 Rethinking Assessment and ACER UK conducted an exploratory study to examine the feasibility of integrating creative thinking into five subjects …

My 13th Teacher Alphabet, Jo Earp

Teacher infographics

What do you need information on? Explicit instruction? Design thinking? Scientific literacy? Student anxiety? The 13th Teacher alphabet brings you quick links to popular content that you might find useful. Download the PDF for a hyperlinked version so you can access the content for each letter.

Children’S University In Australia And New Zealand: Reach And Impact, Katherine Dix, Shani Sniedze, Tamara Van Der Zant

Higher education research

This report presents a comprehensive overview of the reach and impact of Children’s University in Australia and New Zealand. The Australian Council for Educational Research compiled available evidence to consolidate the evidence of the Children's University outreach program's extent and influence across the Australasian partnership. The independent evaluation synthesises information from existing research, reports, operational data, social media, and other documentation to provide a current snapshot of the Children's University's reach and impact, guided by the following research questions. How is the program underpinned by evidence-based best practice? What is the reach of the program in Australia? What does the …

Infographic: Finding The Digital Learning ‘Sweet Spot’, Andrew Broadley

Teacher infographics

According to mathematics performance data from the OECD's PISA 2022 report, students that spend time at school learning on digital devices outperform students that don't. But how much time is too much time? In today’s infographic, we look at student mathematics scores across the OECD and Australia by hours spent on digital learning at school.

Evaluation Of The Smiling Mind Primary School Program 2023, Tamara Van Der Zant, Katherine Dix, Toby Carslake

Wellbeing

In its various forms, the Smiling Mind Primary School Program (the Program) has been delivered in Australian schools since 2016. The Program is a mindfulness-based social and emotional learning (SEL) program designed for primary school students in Years 1 to 6. It aims to support the mental wellbeing and emotional resilience of students. The Program offers an online, digital, curriculum, delivered by trained classroom educators, that incorporates practices and techniques to help students develop skills for managing stress, building resilience, and enhancing their overall mental health.

The Program was delivered to 733 schools in 2023, and due to the ongoing …

Learning Through Play At School Ukraine: Final Research Report (Ukrainian Version), Rachel Parker, Amy Berry, David Jeffries, Prue Anderson, Oksana Zabolotna

Student learning processes

The Learning Through Play (LTP) at School Research Study Ukraine was a four-year intervention study funded by the LEGO Foundation and implemented by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and the Ukrainian Educational Research Association (UERA). The intervention was a two-year professional learning program that blended online, and face-to-face learning called the Teacher Innovative Play Program (TIPP). The TIPP was designed based on documented evidence that reports that teachers need opportunities to experiment and reflect to change practice. The study was guided by three research questions which were revised following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian armed forces …

Learning Through Play At School: Ukraine, 2019-2024 (Ukrainian Version), Rachel Parker, Amy Berry, Kellie Picker, David Jeffries, Prue Anderson, Oksana Zabolotna

Student learning processes

The Learning Through Play at School Research Study Ukraine was a four-year longitudinal intervention study funded by the LEGO Foundation and implemented by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and the Ukrainian Educational Research Association (UERA). The study was implemented between 2019 and 2024, during COVID-19 and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian armed forces. Despite, at times, insurmountable challenges, the professional learning intervention was successful in supporting most teachers to progress from a surface level understanding of learning through play to a deep level. In addition, almost all children’s literacy and social-emotional skills grew significantly from start …

Some Outcomes Of Civic And Citizenship Education Education In Australian Schools: A Paper Prepared For The Joint Standing Committee On Electoral Matters Of The House Of Representatives, John Ainley, Julian Fraillon, Tim Friedman, Rachel Parker

Shaping educational policy

This paper submitted to the 2024 Committee on Electoral Matters of the House of Representatives provides an overview of evidence from large-scale assessment studies concerning civics and citizenship outcomes of students in Australian schools. Those outcomes include students’ knowledge and understanding of civics and citizenship, their values and attitudes toward civics and citizenship processes and issues, and their behavioural intentions regarding future participation in civic and citizenship activities. The paper draws on the published reports from the National Assessment Program - Civics and Citizenship (NAP - CC) which have been conducted in Australia on a triennial basis since 2004, and …

Pisa 2022. Reporting Australia’S Results. Volume Ii: Student And School Characteristics, Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood, Tim Friedman, Eveline Gebhardt

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 have nearly completed compulsory schooling in most participating educational systems, are prepared to use their knowledge and skills in particular areas to meet real-world opportunities and challenges. In addition to the cognitive data reported on in Volume I, PISA collected a wealth of student and school contextual data through the background questionnaires. This report focuses on a variety of constructs related to …

Pisa 2022 Australia Student And Achievement Data [Spss] [Data Set], Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This dataset (SPSS zipped) is a data source for the following reports:

PISA 2022. Reporting Australia’s results. Volume I: Student performance and equity in education

PISA 2022. Reporting Australia’s results. Volume II: Student and school characteristics

Pisa 2022: Reporting Australia’S Results. Volume Ii Student And School Characteristics: Data Tables [Excel] [Data Set], Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

The Zipped Excel file provides the data in tabular format that was used to prepare the figures presented in the report: PISA 2022. Reporting Australia’s results. Volume II: Student and school characteristics. The data covers the constructs reported in the report.

Pisa 2022 Australia Student And Achievement Data [Sas] [Data Set], Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This dataset (SAS zipped) is a data source for the following reports:

PISA 2022. Reporting Australia’s results. Volume I: Student performance and equity in education

PISA 2022. Reporting Australia’s results. Volume II: Student and school characteristics

Pisa 2022. Reporting Australia’S Results. Volume I: Student Performance: Data Tables [Excel] [Data Set], Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This zipped excel file is the data behind the figures and tables in the report: PISA 2022. Reporting Australia’s results. Volume I: Student performance and equity in education. They cover Australian student performance in mathematical literacy, scientific literacy and reading literacy.

Pisa 2022 Australia School Questionnaire Data [Spss] [Data Set], Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This dataset (SPSS zipped) is a data source for the following reports:

PISA 2022. Reporting Australia’s results. Volume I: Student performance and equity in education

PISA 2022. Reporting Australia’s results. Volume II: Student and school characteristics

Pisa 2022 Australia School Questionnaire Data [Sas] [Data Set], Lisa De Bortoli, Catherine Underwood

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

This dataset (SAS zipped) is a data source for the following reports:

PISA 2022. Reporting Australia’s results. Volume I: Student performance and equity in education

PISA 2022. Reporting Australia’s results. Volume II: Student and school characteristics