Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons^™

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.

Schools First: Final Report, Michele Lonsdale

Program monitoring and evaluation

The purpose of this report is to provide both a context and an evidence base for the Schools First Awards, particularly the key criteria that have been developed for the Awards. The basis of the report is a literature review. There are three parts to the review: an overview of the concept of social capital and its relationship to school–community partnerships and school improvement; an outline of several effective school–community partnerships; and a review of a number of national and international award schemes. Building social capital is about building personal and community assets. The concept of ‘asset building’ is at …

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 …

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.

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 …

Assessing And Reporting Of Employability Skills Of Senior Secondary Students, Gabrielle Matters, David D. Curtis

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

This paper traces the emergence of ‘life skills’ from being rather general and global prescriptions for educational change to specific lists of ‘skills’ that schooling, vocational and higher education should address. We focus specifically on the ‘key skills’ of the Employability Skills Framework (ESF) developed jointly by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) and the Business Council of Australia (BCA) (ACCI & BCA, 2002). We propose a strategy for extending the definitions of the key skills to include personal, social and civic objectives. We also identify a sequence of challenges that schools and school systems must address in …

International Engagements: The Characteristics Of International Students’ Engagement With University, Daniel Edwards

Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE)

The international student market is important and lucrative for Australian universities and the Australian economy in general. In 2006, nearly 15 per cent of all income of Australian tertiary providers was derived from international student fees, a total of $2.3 billion. This makes international education Australia’s largest service export and its third largest export industry overall. Between 2001 and 2006, enrolments of undergraduate international students in Australian universities increased 43.3 per cent. By comparison, the growth in enrolments of domestic undergraduate students in this time was much smaller at 1.7 per cent (DEST, 2001 - 2006). In 2006, 14.2 per …

Leadership In Indigenous Education, Nola Purdie, Jenny Wilkinson

Indigenous Education Research

This brief scoping paper was developed around the theme of ‘What’s happening in Indigenous leadership in education in Australian schools?’ A dual focus for this theme was noted: leadership for Indigenous education; and leadership by Indigenous principals and teachers.

The authors provide an overview of current issues in educational leadership that were derived, in the main, from papers presented at the 2007 ACER conference on educational leadership. Current offerings and opportunities in the area of Indigenous leadership and leadership for Indigenous education include those operating through the Australian Principals Associations Professional Development Council (APAPDC), principally through the Dare to Lead …

Beyond Happiness: Managing Engagement To Enhance Satisfaction And Grades, Hamish Coates

Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE)

Universities collect a considerable amount of data on students’ perceptions of the quality of teaching and institutional services, including on their satisfaction with the overall experience. While much data is collected from students, less is collected on what students are actually doing. Yet it is equally – or arguably more – important to understand students and their learning as it is to understand learners’ satisfaction with provision. The Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) provides data on both learners’ engagement in effective learning practices and on whether institutions have provided the support mechanisms to facilitate such engagement. It also collects …

Ict Trends In Education, Gerald K. White

Digital learning research

The use of information and communications technology (ICT) in education is a relatively new phenomenon. Educators, researchers and thinkers have taken up the challenges of using ICT since the 1980s with varied success. The advent of the internet and the World Wide Web has pressured new productivity and service demands as well as expectations on these endeavours although research to guide best practice remains scant and elusive. This discussion about the trends occurring in ICT in education and research begins with a brief history. The brief history of ICT raises a number of issues that provide options for thinking about …

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

Program monitoring and evaluation

At the Second East Asia Summit (EAS) held in 2007, the EAS leaders agreed to strengthen educational cooperation between their 16 countries. On behalf of the EAS, the ASEAN Secretariat 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. Its scope encompasses regional cooperation in Basic Education (Primary and Secondary Education), Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), and Higher Education. The report draws on a literature review of the experience with regional educational cooperation, analysis of published data, consultations with …

Concept And Design Of The International Civic And Citizenship Study., Julian Fraillon, Wolfram Schulz

Civics and Citizenship Assessment

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 in a test of conceptual understandings and competencies in civics and citizenship. It will also collect and analyse, as additional outcome variables, data about student activities, dispositions, and attitudes related to civic and citizenship education. The collection of contextual data will help to explain variation in the outcome variables. The …

A Study Into The Assessment And Reporting Of Employability Skills Of Senior Secondary Students, Gabrielle Matters, David D. Curtis

Assessment and Reporting

In order to investigate the most effective ways of assessing and reporting on the employability skills of senior secondary students, the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) commissioned this report. The main activity was to evaluate options for assessing and reporting on eight employability skills against five criteria—validity, reliability, objectivity, feasibility, and usability—and to recommend a preferred approach. This work was undertaken by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) in the period July 2007 to January 2008, during which time the (new) Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) became responsible for the initiative. The starting …

A Tight Balancing Act : Leadership Challenges For University Heads, Michelle Anderson, Geoff Scott, Hamish Coates

Higher education research

This paper draws on the responses of 134 Heads of School and Heads of Department who were part of a larger study of 513 Australian higher education leaders. Heads of School / Department are at the centre of complex relational interfaces comprising faculty, students, central administration, and external entities and support agencies. While such experiences are not necessarily unique to Heads, the analysis suggests that they do perhaps experience these challenges in more intense and explicit ways than many other managers, as they have to ‘manage’ both up and down. Many of the Heads perceived taking on this position was …

The Digest Edition 2008/2 : Using Data To Improve Student Learning, Marion Meiers

Research Digest

This Digest is focused on studies that have investigated how data can be used in schools to examine teaching practices in order to improve student learning. A selection of relevant websites is listed, and a full reference list is provided. Links to those references for which full-text online access is freely available are also included. School systems, principals and teachers have access to an extensive range of data that can be used for a variety of purposes. Accountability processes and data have come to play a significant place in policy development and reform efforts. There is a large body of …

Australasian Survey Of Student Engagement : 2007 Institution Report, Hamish Coates, Kylie Hillman

Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE)

The Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) involves administration of the Student Engagement Questionnaire (SEQ) to a representative sample of first-year and later-year students at each institution. The AUSSE provides data on satisfaction with the quality of teaching and the learning environment. In total, 25 higher education institutions participated in the 2007 AUSSE – more than half of the universities in Australia and New Zealand. This document contains reports which summarise different aspects of students’ perceptions of their engagement with university education. The reports cover respondent characteristics, frequency distributions, item statistics, scale statistics, and subgroup statistics. This selection of reports …

Beyond ‘The Future Of’ Responding To The Civilisational Challenge, Richard Slaughter

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

Among an array of desirable ‘skills for life and work’ are those that relate to understanding the global context, the challenges visible there and the specific ways young people can be prepared for actively responding. Educators at every level need to move beyond tokenistic treatments of ‘the future’ (singular) to understand the ‘civilisational challenge’ facing us. In so doing, futures concepts, tools and other resources will be invaluable. This paper draws on some aspects of recent scientific research and sources within the broad futures literature to highlight aspects of the near-future environment. It then suggests a number of tasks for …

Young People And Social Inclusion: Challenges For Teaching, Terri Seddon

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

The Crounulla riots were a wake-up call for Australia. With a booming economy and an assertive government, the violence at Crounulla was a stark reminder that nations have to be made and remade culturally, as well as economically. An identity as citizen is as important as an identity as worker in forming sustainable imagined communities that can transcend and ameliorate socio-cultural divisions and conflicts. Yet being a citizen means more than simply belonging to a community. It means using power responsibly to further community (collective) action in pursuit of preferred goals. This paper examines the changing context of skill-building for …

Round And Round Or Fully Rounded? How Can We Improve Youth Transitions?, Richard Sweet

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

Successful transitions from school to work result from a complex mix of institutional settings, opportunity structures and personal effectiveness. Policy needs to work on all of these simultaneously: Australia needs both systems to work and to be fair, and young people who are confident and competent. On the basis of school completion rates, and their consequences in terms of teenage unemployment and the youth labour market disadvantage, Australia performs relatively poorly compared to other advanced economies and has improved little over a long period. A wide range of innovative transition programs has had little impact. We need to shift to …

Some Reforms To Better Equip Young People For Tomorrow's World, Chris Robinson

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

The changing context of schooling is examined in this paper in terms of global changes and what impact these are having on the skills young people need to have. In particular, the way work is changing, and the skills and education young people need to have to maximise their economic opportunities is explored. The key issues are that high skill jobs requiring university or high level vocational qualifications now make up the majority of jobs and they are growing at twice the rate of other jobs in Australia. Young people with university or Vocational Education and Training (VET) qualifications (at …

International Civic And Citizenship Education Study : Assessment Framework, Wolfram Schulz, Julian Fraillon, John Ainley, Bruno Losito, David Kerr

Civics and Citizenship Assessment

The aim of ICCS is to report on student achievement on a test of conceptual knowledge and understandings in civic and citizenship education. It also intends to collect and analyze data about student dispositions and attitudes relating to civic and citizenship education. This publication contains the ICCS assessment framework, which provides the blueprint for the assessment of the outcomes of civic and citizenship education. An important feature of ICCS is the establishment of regional modules. Regional modules compromise groups of countries from the same geographic region that together administer additional instruments to assess region-specific aspects of civic and citizenship education. …

Education Revolution: Ending Educational Apartheid In Australia, Noel Guerin

Shannon Research Press

The education system in Australia is fundamentally unfair and undemocratic. It fails the fundamental test of giving a fair go to every student, because access to the best education is not equally available to all young Australians. Instead, it depends on parents’ capacity and willingness to pay. Discrimination for the privileged elite is based, not on race, but on financial resources. In the United Kingdom, where a similar situation exists, there has been much public debate about ‘educational apartheid’! There is little reason to believe that the situation in this country is fairer. Government school students are generally perceived to …

Exploring Scientific Literacy: How Australia Measures Up. The Pisa 2006 Survey Of Students' Scientific, Reading And Mathematical Literacy Skills, Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

The PISA 2006 assessment more clearly separates knowledge about science from knowledge of science. Knowledge of science refers to knowledge of the natural world across the major fields of physics, chemistry, biological science, Earth and space science, and science-based technology. Knowledge about science refers to knowledge of the means (scientific enquiry) and the goals (scientific explanations) of science. The PISA framework further elaborates on, and gives greater emphasis to, knowledge about science as an aspect of science performance, through the addition of elements that underscore students´ knowledge about the characteristic features of science. The PISA scientific competencies can be thought …

The Intersection Of Vocational Interests With Employment And Course Enrolments, Jim Athanasou

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

This presentation examines the role of interest in learning and career development. It is based on the view that one’s interest is a major factor in educational achievement. Moreover, interest continues to play a substantial role in career throughout the life span. Interest is related to work adjustment and is a key feature of job satisfaction for many individuals. Most people would be prepared to acknowledge that interest is important for learning and working, yet they may not have a clear understanding of the extent of that influence or the extent to which it is able to be expressed.

Australasian Survey Of Student Engagement : Institution Report, Hamish Bennett Coates

Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE)

‘Student engagement’, defined as students’ involvement with activities and conditions likely to generate high-quality learning, is increasingly understood to be important for higher education quality. The concept provides a practical lens for assessing and responding to the significant dynamics, constraints and opportunities facing higher education institutions. It provides key insights into what students are actually doing, a structure for framing conversations about quality, and a stimulus for guiding new thinking about best practice. This 2008 AUSSE Institution Report provides information for evidence-based conversations about students’ engagement in university education. The AUSSE is conducted by, for and with participating institutions. The …

Acer 2007-2008 Annual Report, Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

ACER Annual Reports

No abstract provided.

Developing Tests And Questionnaires For A National Assessment Of Educational Achievement, Prue Anderson, George Morgan

Assessment and Reporting

This book addresses the design of two types of data collection instruments: student achievement tests and background questionnaires. Part 1 covers the development of an assessment framework and a test blueprint, item writing, pretesting, and final test layout. Part 2 delineates comparable stages and activities in the construction of background questionnaires, which are used to gather information from students, teachers, head teachers, or parents on variables that might help explain differences in student performance on the achievement test. Part 3 describes how to design a manual for test administration to help ensure that all students take the test under standardised …

Australia's School Funding System, Andrew Dowling

Program monitoring and evaluation

Australian governments spend over $30 billion on primary and secondary schools each year.1 Yet the process of school funding, including the way in which amounts are calculated, distributed and reported upon, is unavailable not only to the wider public but to some extent even to those working in education. Although Australia’s total spending on schools is small by international standards (given the size of its population), it is significant enough to warrant a more transparent process.