Suzanne Rice

The impact of high-stakes testing on curriculum and pedagogy: a teacher perspective from Australia

Debates continue about how high-stakes testing regimes influence schools at all levels: their impact on teaching practices, distribution of resources and curriculum provision, and whether they achieve the intended increases in student achievement in targeted areas. In 2008, the Australian government introduced a national testing scheme, the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), in which all Australian students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are required to participate, and a national website, MySchool, was established in 2010 to publish the results of all schools. This paper reports on the first national study of educators’ views on the impact of NAPLAN on Australian schools and students. Over 8000 educators from all states and territories participated in the study, and the findings indicate that the testing regime is leading to a reduction in time spent on other curriculum areas and adjustment of pedagogical practice and curriculum content to mirror the tests. The findings suggest that the modification of teaching and curricular practices is in response to concerns regarding the use and reporting of NAPLAN data and the potential impact on schools. This confirms findings of researchers in other countries on the capacity of high-stakes regimes to distort teaching practices, constrain the curriculum and narrow students’ educational experiences.

Working to maximise the effectiveness of a staffing mix: what holds more and less effective teachers in a school, and what drives them away?

There is a significant body of research supporting the notion that teachers are the single most important school-based resource schools have to lift student achievement, and many principals and policymakers are aware of the need to retain good staff. This study used a large sample of Australian teachers in primary and secondary government and non-government schools to examine differences in the importance given by more and less effective teachers to particular factors that might hold them in a school or cause them to leave. More effective teachers placed greater emphasis on factors such as promotion opportunities and improved professional learning options as means to retain them in a school, while less effective teachers valued a more selective intake of students. More effective teachers gave greater emphasis to poor support from the principal as a reason for leaving a school, while less effective teachers gave greater emphasis to poor student behaviour. Implications for school leaders and policymakers are discussed.

Teach For/Teach First candidates: what conclusions do they draw from their time in teaching?

Teach For and Teach First programs now constitute a significant pathway into teaching in a number of countries. One criterion for selection into these programs is leadership capacity, and evidence indicates that many candidates do move into leadership roles in education, business, and policy in the years following their time as a Teach For/Teach First candidate. Given their capacity to influence policy directions and school practice, and to speak with the authority of at least some experience in challenging schools, it is important to understand the types of conclusions they draw from their time in teaching, and the solutions they propose to the problems of educational inequality. This study set out to explore the types of attributions made by 76 Teach For candidates for the low achievement of disadvantaged students, and what they consider to be potential means of effectively addressing the achievement gap. Participants gave most importance to the types of people attracted to and retained in teaching, and placed relatively little importance on improving school resourcing or addressing systemic and structural contributions to educational disadvantage. Implications for those training and working with Teach For candidates are discussed.

Who let the dogs out? Therapy dogs in clinical practice:

Objectives: Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) is a growing field in Australia, and therapy dogs are becoming increasingly common in clinical settings. This paper aims to highlight the current issues facing AAT in Australia and to make recommendations on how to progress the field. We acknowledge that there are several ways that therapy dogs may enhance treatment outcomes for clients, such as reductions in stress and acute anxious arousal, and improvements in engagement and rapport. These psychological and physiological advantages, however, may not be sustained once interaction with the dog ceases. Clinicians require adequate training and support to develop and implement interventions that are based on sound theoretical foundations, and take advantage of the adjunctive benefits of animal presence. Conclusions: A series of recommendations are made for the professionalisation of AAT, including the development of consensus definitions, clinical governance, accreditation, research and evaluation.

Clinical Practice in Education: Towards a Conceptual Framework

Clinical practice has recently emerged as a promising approach that is being applied to teaching and teacher education. Despite this growing interest, however, conceptual and practical ambiguities continue to surround the term. This chapter provides a critical and comprehensive review of how clinical practice is being conceptualised in education by: (a) identifying the core components that characterise clinical practice in education; and (b) discussing the complexities and possibilities of clinical practice in theory and practice. The chapter begins by forging a conceptual framework for understanding clinical practice by identifying three core components that are central to characterising teaching as a clinical practice profession: (1) a focus on student learning and development; (2) evidence-informed practice; and (3) processes of reasoning that lead to decision-making. In summary, we argue that clinical practice offers important possibilities for deepening the theoretical and practical aspects of teaching and teacher education, but that several cautions need to be born in mind in order for it to continue to develop into a meaningful and sustainable concept. While adapting a medical model to teaching should be done with caution and a number of caveats, on balance it offers an approach that has the capacity to strengthen teaching and teacher education.

High stakes testing and teacher access to professional opportunities: lessons from Indonesia

Abstract High-stakes testing regimes, in which schools are judged on their capacity to attain high student results in national tests, are becoming common in both developed and developing nations, including the United States, Britain and Australia. However, while there has been substantial investigation around the impact of high-stakes testing on curriculum and pedagogy, there has been very little research looking at the impact on teachers’ professional opportunities. The current project used a case study approach to examine the impact a high-stakes national testing programme had on teachers’ access to professional learning and their teaching allocations in four Indonesian public schools. It found that better qualified teachers were allocated to classes that would be sitting for the national examinations, and that these teachers were given much more access to professional learning opportunities than those teaching non-examined year levels. This in turn impacted negatively on the staff morale of less qualified teaching staff and potentially on their career trajectories. Findings suggest that school leaders should be wary of targeting better qualified and/or more experienced staff to year levels sitting for high-stakes tests, as this may lead to staff stratification within schools, limiting opportunities for staff to learn from one another and reducing the morale of less qualified and less experienced staff. They also add support to a substantial body of research that suggests policy-makers should be wary of the flow-on effects of using performance in high-stakes tests as the key means of judging school effectiveness.

Compulsory hurdle literacy and numeracy requirements for senior secondary students: what do the stakeholders think?

As a policy initiative to improve student achievement, a number of jurisdictions have introduced compulsory literacy and numeracy standards for senior secondary students, the meeting of which forms a hurdle requirement for the award of the senior secondary exit certificate. While such a requirement is sometimes justified by policymakers as a response to the concerns of interested groups such as employers and further education providers, these concerns are usually anecdotal in nature. There is a dearth of research examining the views of these groups regarding compulsory literacy and numeracy exit requirements for senior students. This study sought to redress this lack by exploring, through interviews and focus groups, the views of Australian employers, teachers, parents and a range of further education providers regarding compulsory literacy and numeracy exit standards. Participants were asked about the degree of support for such standards, which literacy and numeracy skills they deemed essential for successful transitions to work, further study and civic participation, and their views on potential means of assessing compulsory literacy and numeracy standards. Most participants were in favour of compulsory exit literacy and numeracy standards, but views on the nature of the essential skills students required, and on appropriate assessment methods, differed widely. Implications for policymakers are discussed.

Compulsory literacy and numeracy exit standards for senior secondary students : the right direction for Australia?

An overview of positive and negative potential effects of the setting of compulsory exit-level standards in literacy and numeracy for students completing their final years of schooling is presented. The overview rests on studies completed primarily outside Australia, reflecting the reality of such practices not having been implemented widely in Australia. Both negative and positive potential effects are discussed, culminating in a summary of the evidence for these. The relevance of implementation of such standards in Australia is considered, particularly in the context of the implementation of the national curriculum. Notwithstanding individual studies, which appear to demonstrate both negative and positive impacts of such standards, the weight of evidence is judged to be insufficient to justify implementation of this approach in Australia.

Ensuring quality in career guidance: a critical review

ABSTRACT In rapidly changing employment markets, career guidance has a vital role to play in supporting people in navigating transitions between education and employment across the lifespan. In this article, the issue of quality and quality assurance in career guidance is explored. Although there is no clear agreed international understanding of what quality career guidance looks like, through a review of current approaches we identify six main areas which may be quality assured and propose a new typology of approaches to assuring quality. The article concludes with a critical consideration of the issues that quality assurance approaches in career guidance generate, highlighting the need for caution so that the pursuit of quality does not undermine the goals it seeks to achieve.

Student engagement, non-completion and pedagogy: Development of a measurement tool:

A significant body of research documents the negative consequences of dropping out of school for both the individual and society. In attempting to respond to the problem of early school leaving, schools and systems internationally have put in place a range of system-level and local responses such as mentoring, targeted additional career guidance and homework clubs. Unfortunately, these ‘add-ons’ often stop outside the classroom door, and do not consider the impact of teaching practices on students’ engagement in school and their decisions to remain or leave. This article reports on the development of instruments aimed at measuring four constructs that have been shown to be related to student engagement and school completion, namely competence, autonomy, relatedness and an appreciation of subject relevance. Analyses of data from a small sample of Year 9 students (N = 48) in two Australian secondary schools indicated that, with some adjustments, the research instruments developed provided reliable and valid measures of the four constructs for use in large-scale research with students.