Seeding Success and Research-Based Intervention for Aboriginal Students:
Impact of quality teaching, effective schools, and psycho-social drivers on
educational outcomes
The Seeding Success project is the first large scale representative survey of the
effects of schooling experiences and resilience on educational outcomes of
Aboriginal students and their classmates. The project is the result of a collaboration
between the Research and Evaluation Unit in Planning and Innovation, the
Aboriginal Education and Training Directorate, the Professional Learning and
Leadership Development Directorate and a team of researchers in Aboriginal
education from the Centre for Educational Research at the University of Western
Sydney. The university team is headed by Professor Rhonda Craven and
A/Professor Geoff Munns. The project steering committee also includes
representatives from the AECG.
The project aims to identify factors that are linked to successful educational
achievement for NSW Aboriginal students. It examines Aboriginal and non Aboriginal
student views regarding their learning experiences as well as those of their teachers
to help develop an understanding of which factors matter most for this group of
students in Years 3 to 6.
The study involves 52 randomly selected schools from metropolitan and regional
areas.
The design of the study consists of four phases. The first phase in 2008 involved
testing the psychometric properties of existing and newly developed instrumentation
for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students to ensure the measures are robust for the
sample under consideration.
The main study in 2009 consisted of the collection of three time waves of quantitative
data from Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students in Year 3 to Year 6. The data
included student and teacher surveys of features of quality teaching as well as
measures of literacy and numeracy progress. State of the art statistical methods of
the longitudinal data are to be used to tease out the specific factors that have
significant impacts on educational outcomes after controlling for the effects of other
variables and any measurement error.
The final phase in 2009 was an in-depth ethnography in selected classroom
environments and interviews of principals, teachers and students.
The field work has been completed and reports will be completed in mid to late 2010.
For information please contact Dr Brian Davies, Manager of Research and
Evaluation on (02) 9561-8094.