In this issue:

• Culture-fair assessment issues examined
• Whatever the source - assessment data can inform teaching and learning
• Measuring non-academic outcomes of schooling
• How can an international large-scale test help our students and teachers?
• High regard for education a key to Finland’s success
• National assessment data meaningful for schools
• ACER UPDATE
• Introduction

A greater emphasis on more ‘culturally inclusive’ assessment and teaching methods for Indigenous students may help to address their pattern of under-achievement in national benchmark data and international testing programs according to a paper presented at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) conference in Perth earlier this month. The presentation, by Professor Val Klenowski from Queensland University of Technology and Ms Thelma Gertz of the Catholic Education Office Townsville, was based on an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage research project examining equity issues as they relate to the validity and fairness of assessment practices.

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While some educators argue that information from system-wide tests is not useful for improving learning, good quality data from a range of sources can and should be used to inform teaching, according to a paper to be presented at the ACER Research Conference in Perth on 17 August. “What matters is the quality rather than the source of information,” said Dr Margaret Forster, Research Director of the Assessment and Reporting Research Program at ACER. “And that means the diagnostic power of the assessment – the power of the assessment to illuminate strengths and weaknesses in students’ understandings. Informative assessment, assessment that can drive teaching and learning, bypasses the division between assessment of learning and for learning.”

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One essential flaw in the way many schools and systems attempt to improve some non-academic outcomes of schooling is the assumption that simply providing students with the opportunity to demonstrate the outcomes will be enough for the students to develop them, according to a paper presented at the ACER Research Conference on 17 August. Authors ACER Senior Research Fellow Prue Anderson and Principal Research Fellow Julian Fraillon identify three main challenges in measuring non-academic outcomes of schooling: defining the outcome, measuring the outcome and improving outcomes.

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Large-scale testing programs are sometimes criticised because they are not used to effect change, and may narrow the curriculum as teachers “teach to the test”. However, the framework for the test and interpretation of its results can be used to improve the teaching of reading, according to a paper presented at the ACER Research Conference on 17 August. The paper, by ACER Principal Research Fellow Juliette Mendelovits, Senior Research Fellow Dr Tom Lumley and Research Fellow Dara Searle, focuses on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Achievement (OECD PISA), which assesses 15-year-olds in several domains including reading every three years. In the current cycle, PISA will be administered in 75 countries. This study can be useful to teachers through international comparisons, the opportunity to compare frameworks, and monitoring new areas included in the PISA survey of student proficiencies.

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Possible reasons behind Finland’s continued success in international tests of student achievement were presented to ACER’s Research Conference by Professor Patrik Scheinin from the University of Helsinki. He presented the case of the Finnish comprehensive school to discuss strategic questions of educational policy, teacher education and teaching. Finland has been a top performer in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) since its inception. The country’s education system has been closely scrutinised by educators around the world, keen to find the answers to why some countries perform better than others on PISA.

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National assessment programs are useful for improving education, University of Western Australia Dean of Education Professor Helen Wildy told the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) annual conference on 18 August. Professor Wildy has drawn on the experience of several projects conducted in WA over the last 10 years that have aimed to improve the skills of primary and secondary school teachers and leaders to interpret the results of student assessment in meaningful ways.

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Conference proceedings and additional papers available online

The full conference proceedings and additional individual papers from Research Conference 2009 are now available online. Power Point presentations are also available from most sessions. These can be downloaded from the conference web page.

Research Conference 2010

ACER’s fifteenth annual research conference will take place in Melbourne from 15-17 August 2010 at the Crown Promenade Hotel. The theme for Research Conference 2010 is Teaching mathematics? Make it count : What research tells us about effective mathematics teaching and learning. Further information about the conference will be posted on the Professional Learning section of the ACER website as it becomes available. Download the conference flyer.

Research Conference 2009 special edition

The following articles are based on papers presented at the ACER Research Conference 2009, Assessment and Student Learning: Collecting, interpreting and using data to inform teaching .