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Week 04: Alternative University Pathways
The Special Tertiary Admissions Test is helping learners to become engaged in challenging learning opportunities appropriate to their readiness and needs.
There are thousands of prospective university students without a recent Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) who sit the Special Tertiary Admissions Test (STAT). Without this additional evidence, the ‘latent talent’ of many of these students would remain undiscovered.
That’s no small matter, says Marita MacMahon-Ball, General Manager of Higher Education in Assessment Services at ACER, since about 15 000 candidates sit the STAT every year. ‘The STAT gives prospective students who have no other way of showing universities what their capabilities are the opportunity of gaining entry,’ Marita says. ‘Prospective students without a recent ATAR, or with an ATAR that doesn’t reflect their current actual capability, can bring a whole range of evidence of their achievement to the attention of a university, but it’s the STAT that enables universities to make objective comparisons,’ she says. ‘Most Australian universities offer entry via the STAT pathway.’
The capacity to enable educational institutions to make objective comparisons obviously enhances the social good, but Marita also sees the benefit to individuals. ‘I remember one student who had absolutely hated Year 12 and just didn’t apply himself, despite his capability,’ she recalls. ‘His STAT gained him entry into a Bachelor of Education, where he’s now training to be a primary school teacher, and he loves working with kids. Without the STAT, his latent talent might’ve remained untapped.’
As with the development of any other assessment, says Marita, the STAT is the result of a team effort. She works closely with item writers in ACER’s Assessment and Reporting programs and the Psychometrics Institute to produce the best assessment possible. How good? According to research by Hamish Coates and Tim Friedman from the Higher Education Research Program at ACER, published in the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, the STAT is a robust predictor.
For the STAT’s 15 000 or so candidates each year, that’s a good thing. To paraphrase Robert Frost, some take the path less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
Related links: www.acer.edu.au/tests/stat
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Week 52: State of the art psychometric and statistical analysis
Week 51: Assessing civics and citizenship
Week 50: International research into teaching and learning
GOAL 1
Learners and their needs
every learner engaged in challenging learning opportunities appropriate to their readiness and needs
GOAL 2
The Learning Profession
every learning professional highly skilled, knowledgeable and engaged in excellent practice
GOAL 3
Places of learning
every learning community well resourced and passionately committed to improving outcomes for all learners
GOAL 4
A Learning Society
a society in which every learner experiences success and has an opportunity to achieve their potential
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Pursuing Quality and Equity through Evidence
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