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Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)

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Articles 1381 - 1410 of 1793

Full-Text Articles in Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research

Optimism And Pessimism In Children, Shirley M. Yates Jan 2003

Optimism And Pessimism In Children, Shirley M. Yates

Shannon Research Press

Areas of learning where performance is measured through systematic and responsible assessment can contribute to the conceptualisation and valuing of art education through the provision of evidence of learning and development of artistic skills. There is a need for measurement to be undertaken in assessment in art production, on the basis of a shared symbol system, that allows for detailed classifications of visual art works. The aim of this study was to improve validity, reliability and credibility in measuring student performance in art production, and thereby increase the positive impact of assessment in the visual arts discipline.

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The Importance Of Teacher Quality As A Key Determinant Of Students’ Experiences And Outcomes Of Schooling, Ken Rowe Jan 2003

The Importance Of Teacher Quality As A Key Determinant Of Students’ Experiences And Outcomes Of Schooling, Ken Rowe

2003 - Building Teacher Quality: What does the research tell us?

Much of the traditional and prevailing dogmas surrounding factors affecting students' experiences and outcomes of schooling throughout their primary and secondary years - especially socio-cultural and socio-economic factors - are now understood to be products of methodological and statistical artefact, and amount to little more than religious adherence to the moribund ideologies of biological and social determinism. In this paper, key findings are presented highlighting real effects from recent and emerging local and international research on educational effectiveness. For example, whereas students' literacy skills, general academic achievements, attitudes, behaviours and experiences of schooling are influenced by the background and intake …

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Lessons From The Third International Mathematics And Science Study, Sue Thomson, Jan Lokan, Lamb Stephen, John Ainley Jan 2003

Lessons From The Third International Mathematics And Science Study, Sue Thomson, Jan Lokan, Lamb Stephen, John Ainley

TIMSS Australia Monograph Series

TIMSS – the Third International Mathematics and Science Study – was a massive international project. Internationally, more than half a million students from over 30 000 classes in more than 15 000 schools in 45 countries participated. In Australia, the sample consisted of more than 29 000 students at three grade levels. This report is based on data obtained from the younger two cohorts: those at grade 4/5 (approximately 12 500 students) and those at grade 8/9 level (approximately 14 500 students). Its focus is on understanding the factors that influence achievement in mathematics and science.

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Evaluating The Quality And Impact Of Professional Development Programs, Lawrence Ingvarson, Marion Meiers, Adrian Beavis Jan 2003

Evaluating The Quality And Impact Of Professional Development Programs, Lawrence Ingvarson, Marion Meiers, Adrian Beavis

Professional learning for teachers and school leaders

The purpose of this paper is to review recent work that ACER has been doing to improve the usefulness of evaluations of professional development programs. This work includes the development of research-based instruments to measure: the nature and quality of the processes used to promote teacher learning; the impact of programs on teacher knowledge, practice and student outcomes; the relationships between these process and impact measures. The paper is based on approaches developed as part of four recent evaluations of professional development programs. These include: three evaluations of the Commonwealth Government’s Quality Teacher Program, as implemented in three separate states: …

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Quality Of Professional Learning Index: Measure Of Outcomes Of Professional Development, Lawrence C. Ingvarson Jan 2003

Quality Of Professional Learning Index: Measure Of Outcomes Of Professional Development, Lawrence C. Ingvarson

Professional learning for teachers and school leaders

No abstract provided.

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Engaging Secondary School Students In Lifelong Learning, Jennifer Bryce, Graeme Withers Jan 2003

Engaging Secondary School Students In Lifelong Learning, Jennifer Bryce, Graeme Withers

Indigenous Education Research

A 'lifelong learning' orientation to education is seen as vital if young people are to thrive in the knowledge rich, constantly changing world of today and the immediate future. This study identifies ways that the foundations for lifelong learning can be built in secondary schools. 'Lifelong learning' is interpreted as engaging people with learning throughout all stages of their lives. Lifelong learning at secondary school level is concerned with keeping students engaged in learning, and developing in those students the characteristics that will make learning an integral and valued part of their lives when they leave school. Thus the report …

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Impact Of School Libraries On Student Achievement: A Review Of The Research, Michele Lonsdale Jan 2003

Impact Of School Libraries On Student Achievement: A Review Of The Research, Michele Lonsdale

School and system improvement

This literature review was undertaken on behalf of the Australian School Library Association (ASLA). It was conducted over a four-week period in November–December 2002. The main purpose of the review was to report on the nature and extent of the evidence that has linked school libraries to student achievement from 1990 - 2002, to identify the strengths and gaps in existing data as it might relate to an Australian setting, and to suggest some strategies for developing further research in Australia.

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Pisa 2003 Australia Student, Achievement And School Data [Sas] [Data Set], Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, John Cresswell Jan 2003

Pisa 2003 Australia Student, Achievement And School Data [Sas] [Data Set], Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, John Cresswell

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Australia

No abstract provided.

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A Good Start To Numeracy : Effective Numeracy Strategies From Research And Practice In Early Childhood, Brian Doig, Barry Mcrae, Ken Rowe Jan 2003

A Good Start To Numeracy : Effective Numeracy Strategies From Research And Practice In Early Childhood, Brian Doig, Barry Mcrae, Ken Rowe

Student learning processes

The Commonwealth-funded Project Good Start was a longitudinal study of children during their year before school and the first year of school, involving preschool centres and schools across Australia. It considered the questions: how can effective numeracy programs be identified at both year-before-school and the early years of school; and what constitutes evidence of effectiveness. This report provides a review of the international and Australian research literature on numeracy in early childhood that complements the Department of Education, Science and Training’s major review of the numeracy literature undertaken by Deakin University. It is designed to provide early childhood professionals and …

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Acer 2002-2003 Annual Report, Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer) Jan 2003

Acer 2002-2003 Annual Report, Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

ACER Annual Reports

No abstract provided.

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Evaluation Of The University Of Canberra Programme For Advanced Literacy Development Scaffolding Literacy Programme With Indigenous Children In School, John Cresswell, Catherine Underwood, Graeme Withers, Isabelle Adams Dec 2002

Evaluation Of The University Of Canberra Programme For Advanced Literacy Development Scaffolding Literacy Programme With Indigenous Children In School, John Cresswell, Catherine Underwood, Graeme Withers, Isabelle Adams

Indigenous Education Research

This evaluation was created from the records of interviews with the principals and teachers and others involved in the Scaffolding Literacy Programme and is, therefore, a summary document of all the data collected by the three researchers at ACER and the sub-contractor in Western Australia, with an interpretation of the observations in terms of the guidelines set out in the contract.

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Diversity And Learning In The Early Years Of School, Tracey Frigo, Isabelle Adams Dec 2002

Diversity And Learning In The Early Years Of School, Tracey Frigo, Isabelle Adams

Indigenous Education Research

This paper reports on a longitudinal study being conducted by Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and a team of Aboriginal consultants in thirteen schools across Australia, which is following the progress of a group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in their early years of schooling. The data collected includes measures of early literacy and numeracy, complemented by qualitative data gathered through interviews, questionnaires and observation. The paper describes the diverse learning environments experienced by this group of children, and the many ways that schools and teachers are attempting to maximise effective learning environments for these children in …

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The Estimation Of Polytomous Item Response Models With Many Dimensions, Nikolai Volodin, Ray J. Adams Dec 2002

The Estimation Of Polytomous Item Response Models With Many Dimensions, Nikolai Volodin, Ray J. Adams

Assessment and Reporting

Identification conditions and an improved estimation method for a D-dimensional mixed coefficients multinomial logit model are discussed. This model is a generalisation of the Adams and Wilson (1997) random coefficients multinomial logit and it can be used to fit multdimensional forms of a wide range of Rasch measurement models. The computational demands of the numerical integration required in fitting such models have limited previous implementations to three and perhaps four-dimensional problems (Glas, 1992; Adams, Wilson and Wang, 1997). This paper illustrates a Monte Carlo integration method that permits the estimation of models with much higher dimensionality. The example in …

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Lsay Cohort Report The Year 9 Class Of 1998 In 2001: Education, Employment And Interests, Sheldon Rothman Nov 2002

Lsay Cohort Report The Year 9 Class Of 1998 In 2001: Education, Employment And Interests, Sheldon Rothman

LSAY Cohort Reports

This is the third in a series of annual reports on the activities of the Year 9 class of 1998 in the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) project during the previous year. It provides details of the experiences of the cohort in 2001 and, when used with previous Cohort Reports for 1999 and 2000, can be used to monitor annual changes within the cohort.

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Achievement In Literacy And Numeracy By Australian 14 Year-Olds, 1975-1998, Sheldon Rothman Nov 2002

Achievement In Literacy And Numeracy By Australian 14 Year-Olds, 1975-1998, Sheldon Rothman

LSAY Research Reports

This LSAY research report examines student achievement scores on tests of reading comprehension and mathematics from five studies conducted between 1975 and 1998. The data are from five studies involving young people in Australian schools: the Australian Studies in School Performance in 1975, the Australian Studies of Student Performance in 1980, the 1989 Youth in Transition study and the 1995 and 1998 Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth studies. The report examines literacy and numeracy trends for all students and for smaller groups of students, with results reported by gender, language background, socioeconomic status and location. Multivariate analyses examine how influences …

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Vocational Education And Training : Participation, Achievement And Pathways., Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer) Sep 2002

Vocational Education And Training : Participation, Achievement And Pathways., Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

LSAY Briefing Reports

This paper looks at some of the findings from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) on participation in vocational education and training (VET) in schools programs, pathways that are associated with these programs, and ways in which students who do not complete Year 12 can be helped by VET courses beyond the school.

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Becoming An Adult : Leaving Home, Relationships And Home Ownership Among Australian Youth, Kylie Hillman, Gary Marks Sep 2002

Becoming An Adult : Leaving Home, Relationships And Home Ownership Among Australian Youth, Kylie Hillman, Gary Marks

LSAY Research Reports

Most studies on the transition from school implicitly assume that adulthood is reached upon gaining full-time work. This report focuses on other aspects of adulthood: moving out of home, establishing a relationship, and buying a house. The report documents the incidence of these events over time and analyses their relationship with social background, demographic and labour market factors. The study uses data from the four Youth in Transition cohorts born in 1961, 1965, 1970 and 1975. [Author abstract]

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Education Helping To Build Social Capital : The British Experience, Estelle Morris Aug 2002

Education Helping To Build Social Capital : The British Experience, Estelle Morris

APC Monographs

The author, a former secondary teacher, now Secretary of State for Education and Skills in the UK government, reflects on the necessity to share ideas about education internationally.

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Student Engagement With School : Individual And School-Level Influences, Sue Fullarton Jul 2002

Student Engagement With School : Individual And School-Level Influences, Sue Fullarton

LSAY Research Reports

In this report, which examines the engagement of young people with school, engagement is defined through Finn's taxonomy of engagement or participatory behaviours, which examines students' level of participation in the extracurricular activities offered to them by their schools. Major findings from the investigation show that between-school differences account for almost 9% of the variation in students engagement levels; the overall level of student engagement in the school was a strong predictor of student-level engagement; gender, parents' educational level, student perceptions of school climate, self-concept of ability and intrinsic motivation were all found to have an effect on individual engagement, …

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Strengthening The Profession? A Comparison Of Recent Reforms In The Uk And The Usa, Lawrence Ingvarson Jul 2002

Strengthening The Profession? A Comparison Of Recent Reforms In The Uk And The Usa, Lawrence Ingvarson

Teaching standards and teacher evaluation

Educational policy makers in many countries recognise the need to focus their policies more directly on factors affecting the quality of teachers. Common to these policies are attempts to reform teachers' pay systems and career paths to place greater value on teachers' work and give stronger incentives for professional development. Investing in effective modes of on going professional learning is regarded increasingly as one of the most effective means of improving student learning outcomes. This article examines two approaches to reforming the teaching profession, one from the UK, the other in the USA. In the case of the UK, the …

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Education Participation And Outcomes By Geographic Location, Roger Jones Jun 2002

Education Participation And Outcomes By Geographic Location, Roger Jones

LSAY Research Reports

This project has two related aims: to assess the viability of using the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) study data for national reporting of outcomes by geographic location; and to investigate, using LSAY data, the variations in education participation and outcomes by geographic location. While the analyses generally show no statistically significant disadvantage associated with living in a remote area, the small sample size and the small number of schools from which remote area students are selected in the LSAY caution against concluding that there is no disadvantage. [Executive summary, ed]

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Codebook: The Lsay 1998 Year 9 Sample Wave 4 (2001) Technical Report No. 26, Kylie Hillman Jun 2002

Codebook: The Lsay 1998 Year 9 Sample Wave 4 (2001) Technical Report No. 26, Kylie Hillman

LSAY Technical Reports

The 1998 Year 9 Cohort (Y98) In 1998, a nationally representative sample of approximately 14,000 Year 9 students was selected to form the second cohort of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth. The sample was constructed by randomly selecting two Year 9 classes from a sample of schools designed to represent state and sector. Reading and numeracy tests were administered to students in their schools to provide information on early school achievement for use in later analyses of educational and labour market participation. Students also completed a background questionnaire about their educational and vocational plans and attitudes to school. Details …

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Development Of A National Standards Framework For The Teaching Profession, Lawrence Ingvarson May 2002

Development Of A National Standards Framework For The Teaching Profession, Lawrence Ingvarson

Teaching standards and teacher evaluation

This paper was prepared for the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment and Training Taskforce on Teacher Quality & Educational Leadership. The brief for the paper was to 'Develop an issues paper to provide a basis for discussion and, where possible, propose options. The paper covers the following broad areas: definitions and purposes for standards (the meaning of standards, rationale for teaching standards, purposes for teaching standards: mapping the territory); defining performance-based teaching standards (professional principles; content standards; evidential standards ; performance standards; how are standards structured?); teaching standards: whose responsibility?; a national standards framework: issues and areas for action (accreditation …

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What Matters Most: Evidence-Based Findings Of Key Factors Affecting The Educational Experiences And Outcomes For Girls And Boys Throughout Their Primary And Secondary Schooling, Ken Rowe, Kathy Rowe May 2002

What Matters Most: Evidence-Based Findings Of Key Factors Affecting The Educational Experiences And Outcomes For Girls And Boys Throughout Their Primary And Secondary Schooling, Ken Rowe, Kathy Rowe

Student learning processes

Much of the prevailing public interest and media 'hype' surrounding gender issues in education - especially differences in boys' and girls' experiences and outcomes of schooling - amount to little more than anecdotal rhetoric and opinion. In this expanded, supplementary submission to the Inquiry Into the Education of Boys, key findings are presented highlighting 'real' effects from recent and emerging evidence-based research on teacher and school effectiveness. For example, whereas on average, boys' literacy skills, general academic achievements, attitudes, behaviours and experiences of schooling are notably poorer than those of girls - despite their socioeconomic and sociocultural backgrounds - these …

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Explaining Differences In Civic Knowledge: Multilevel Regression Analyses Of Student Data From 27 Countries, Wolfram Schulz Apr 2002

Explaining Differences In Civic Knowledge: Multilevel Regression Analyses Of Student Data From 27 Countries, Wolfram Schulz

Civics and Citizenship Assessment

What explains the differences in student knowledge about Democracy, institutions and Citizenship and their skills in interpreting political communication? Does the amount of 'civic knowledge' depend mainly on the home environment, on the students' level of communication and activities in the area of politics, or does school make a difference in acquiring this knowledge? Which student-level and school-level factors do have an effect on cognitive abilities in this domain? The second lEA Civic Education Study provides data on 14-year-old students from 28 countries from Europe, North America, South America, Asia and the Pacific which can be used to study the …

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Changes In Mathematics Achievement Over Time In Australia And Ethiopia, Tilahun Mengesha Afrassa Apr 2002

Changes In Mathematics Achievement Over Time In Australia And Ethiopia, Tilahun Mengesha Afrassa

Shannon Research Press

This study has five major purposes: to develop a general theoretical model which considers the multivariate structure of the available data; to examine the changes of the mathematics achievement level of Australian lower secondary school students over time; to develop a common mathematics scale to enable investigation of mathematics achievement over time and across countries; to develop a theoretical model of student level factors influencing the mathematics achievements of lower secondary students in Australia and Ethiopia and to examine these hypothesised interrelationships between variables; and to investigate the views and attitudes of Australian and Ethiopian students towards mathematics and schooling …

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Building A National Vocational Education And Training System, Robin Ryan Apr 2002

Building A National Vocational Education And Training System, Robin Ryan

Shannon Research Press

This study seeks to establish that policy in vocational education has oscillated between two poles. At one, vocational education is seen largely as an adjunct to economic development and the primary concern of the sector is to meet the needs of industry rather than of students. At the other, vocational education is seen as primarily student centred, encompassing goals of individual self-development and the creation of a more equitable society. In practice both these perspectives are present at any time, and both may be almost equally emphasised in VET policy and rhetoric.

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Listening To The Boys: Issues And Problems Influencing School Achievement And Retention, Malcolm Slade Apr 2002

Listening To The Boys: Issues And Problems Influencing School Achievement And Retention, Malcolm Slade

Shannon Research Press

This work summarises the views of 1800 boys, from 60 secondary schools in South Australia, balanced across all sectors. Their views have been clear and largely uniform across the schools, year levels and levels of achievement. Several popularly held views, that the problems start in the primary years, and that the issues are reducible to matters of gender difference, gender equity, peer pressure or literacy and numeracy, are rejected, by the boys and others, as simplistic to the point of being false. Issues about masculinity are conspicuous in their absence. Instead, the boys identify a broad range of interconnected factors, …

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Constructing And Using Educational Performance Indicators, Ken Rowe, Denise Lievesley Apr 2002

Constructing And Using Educational Performance Indicators, Ken Rowe, Denise Lievesley

Student learning processes

Within the context of a growing international movement toward the adoption of ‘outcomes-based’ modes of educational provision and governance, this paper focuses on the context, nature, purpose and construction of educational performance indicators. Key issues related to types and sources of indicators, essential features of useful indicators, constructing and using performance indicators to advantage, and key elements of Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) are presented and discussed.

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Fair And Meaningful Measures? A Review Of Examination Procedures In The Nsw Higher School Certificate, Geoff N. Masters Mar 2002

Fair And Meaningful Measures? A Review Of Examination Procedures In The Nsw Higher School Certificate, Geoff N. Masters

Assessment and Reporting

In September 1997 the New South Wales government introduced a number of significant reforms to the Higher School Certificate (HSC). The broad objectives of the 'new' HSC, which was implemented for the first time in 2000-01, are to increase the rigour and quality of the HSC curriculum; ensure HSC marks fairly reflect the standards achieved by students; provide more informative reports of students' HSC achievements; and enhance the chances for more equitable educational outcomes. Although the new HSC incorporates reforms of both HSC curricula and methods of assessing and reporting student achievement, the focus of this review is on new …

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