Summary of educational issue
General aims
To improve equity in education by reducing negative systemic parameters which
disproportionately affect specific social groups.
To reduce negative effects and improve outcomes over the full range of students.
To incorporate significant research evidence concerning quality of assessment
feedback, into school systems.
Thesis
Systemic structures can exacerbate poor achievement in students with early deficits in
literacy and numeracy.
More specifically, that:
a) performance based assessment and reporting systems are more likely to lead to
disengagement and poor outcomes, and
b) an assessment and reporting system that focuses on individual progression
through a fixed developmental continuum is less likely to lead to
disengagement,
by reinforcing expectations of failure in classroom activities established early in
schooling.
Underpinning beliefs
1. All students can progress if they maintain engagement in schooling, albeit at
different rates.
2. All people will act so as to bolster their self worth in situations of stress.
3. Psychological resilience is learned through honest success in a range of contexts
requiring effort.
4. Adolescent psychology is different from adult psychology on average in that:
 Adolescents are generally more focussed on their immediate surroundings and
interactions than any possible future situations.
 Adolescents are highly susceptible to self esteem damage.
 Adolescents are more focussed on their personal needs than adults.
5. Australian (indeed Western) culture over the last 20 years has exaggerated
‘normal’ adolescent attitudes, resulting in more chance that students will
‘disengage’ from schooling in preference to ‘trying harder’ under stress.
6. Poor educational outcomes for many students are caused primarily by
disengagement from classroom activities resulting in a lack of practice in basic
literacy and numeracy skills and conceptual development.
7. Successful conceptual ability in many subjects is concealed by existing skills
deficits in an A – E framework because of the generic nature of the standards.
8. Students in indigenous and lower socio-economic social groups are more likely to
present with poor literacy and numeracy skills in early childhood.
9. Assessment for learning is only useful when feedback is specific and constructive.
10.
Learning outcomes are more effective when they are linked to current needs.
Evidence and relevant quotes
General Educational Systems
 PISA scores for Australia are high quality-low equity. With poor
performance being linked very strongly with postcode or socio-economic
background,
 Australia is viewed as having a ‘high stakes’ education system.
 PISA scores for Finland, are high quality-high equity. With the smallest
correlation between parental socio-economic background and performance of
any OECD country.
 Finland is viewed as having a ‘low stakes’ education system.
 Students who ‘fail’ early in education tend to continue to fail and even get
worse over time unless receiving specific and quality intervention at a very
early stage in their schooling. (indigenous research WA 2002???)
Bremer Action Research Project
 Student engagement and behaviour at Bremer State High School improved
under a low stakes schooling model assessing, and individual reporting against
an developmental continuum.
 Student engagement and behaviour at Bremer immediately got worse when the
assessment and reporting model had to change back to a performance based 5
point scale.
Psychology and adolescence
 Current schooling is particularly failing the adolescent learner (Fensham 2005)
 Academic confidence comes from concretely experienced, daily, academic
success, with concretely experienced, daily, academic failure undermining
motivation to try in school (Covington, 2000; Covington & Omelich, 1979).
 Prior achievement has a 0.71 correlation with future success (John Hattie,
University of Auckland, ACER Conference 2005)
 Perception of self in continuing studies has > 0.8 correlation with continued
effort in subject (German man)
Stakes and effect of testing
 Watson (1996) notes: ‘In high stakes testing environments, educational
practitioners are likely to distort their behaviour in order to meet the demands
of the indicator, usually to the detriment of their real job’. (in Rowe, 2000,
p77)
 Nisbet (1993, p. 25) further highlights this dilemma in the following terms:
In today’s schools, assessment is a main influence on how pupils learn and how
teachers teach. Whether assessment is in the form of examinations and tests, or
marks and grades for coursework, its influence is pervasive. Often it distorts the
process of learning through teaching to the test, cramming, short-term
memorising, anxiety and stress – to the extent that learning to cope with
assessment has become almost as important as the genuine learning which such
assessments are supposed to measure. For many young people, assessment
dominates education
(in Rowe , 2000, p77).

Similar sentiments have frequently been observed that ‘opportunity to
learn’ is a major explanation for patterns of performance on the tests.
This is true in the case of the study reported by Bosker, Kremers and
Lugthart (1990), and has been a consistent finding in various
international studies of achievement (see Bosker & Scheerens, 1989,
1994; Scheerens & Bosker, 1997; Hill & Rowe, 1998) (in Rowe,
Kenneth J, 2000, p77).
Discussion
Psychology
All people have an innate commitment to maintaining their concept of self worth. In
adolescents this commitment is heightened as they try to develop their individual
sense of self. Whenever this sense of self worth is threatened, people respond in ways
that are self supporting. These may include – working harder to overcome the
obstacle, pretending that the obstacle is unimportant, and not making any effort so
that the failure to overcome the obstacle is rendered unimportant.
As Covington noted in 2000,
Academic confidence comes from concretely experienced, daily, academic
success, with concretely experienced, daily, academic failure undermining
motivation to try in school (Covington, 2000; Covington & Omelich, 1979).
and as has been noted in other studies, prior achievement has a strong correlation with
future success (0.71 John Hattie, University of Auckland, ACER Conference 2005)
(> 0.8 (German man). In this way ‘current schooling is particularly failing the
adolescent learner’ (Fensham 2005) by selectively reinforcing negative attitudes to
engagement and future success for those who have most need of support. This burden
seems to fall most particularly onto indigenous students and those from lower
socioeconomic backgrounds (PISA and WA study)
The Australian education environment is a high stakes one at all levels with
consequent negative impact on some students’ attitudes. The terms, high stakes and
low stakes are used in education to describe how important an assessment/reporting
event is to a stakeholder. More specifically it is often used to describe the emotional
impact on the participant in the event – the student.
For younger adolescents most assessment events appear to be regarded as high stakes.
In other words any judgement of their performance impacts on them emotionally in
terms of:
 their own perception of their performance as success or failure, and
 the perceived importance of their success or failure to those in immediate
social contact, namely their peers, their parent/guardians and their teacher.
The nature of performance based assessment systems tends to merely confirm each
student’s own view of their success in the school environment. It is rare that a student
who has been persistently ‘failing’ can break out of that perception. In other words,
performance based systems tend to favour the status quo.
A feeling of low stakes in assessment reduces negative attitudes to schooling by
encouraging risk taking in performance.
Effect of assessment on disengagement
performance based assessment and reporting systems that compare students against
an expected baseline (pass) performance appear to students to be comparing one
against the other increasing the sense of emotional connection or ‘stakes’.
assessment systems that rely too heavily on formal performances, multiply (as in
many times or repeatedly) penalise students who have a communication skills deficit,
and finally that
Multiple penalty
Issue of separation of poor communication skills from knowledge development in
assessment performance.
Impact on teaching
performance based assessment and reporting systems limit teachers’ ability to be
supportive of student development by engendering an belief in pass or fail.
Bibliography to use
Key research materials

Angus, Max, 2005, submission to the Inquiry into Changes to the Post-Compulsory
Curriculum, W.A.

Bremer State High School Science department, discussions, interviews and
questionnaires. 1999 - 2005

Bryce, Jennifer and Withers, Graeme, 2003, Engaging secondary school students in
lifelong learning, Australian Council for Educational Research, Camberwell, Vic.
http://www.acer.edu.au/research/Research_reports/documents/LifeLongLearning_Engagi
ng.pdf

Educational research processes seminar, 2005, UQ Ipswich campus.

Fensham, Peter J, 2005, discussion paper for Curriculum Corporation Science expert
meeting

Fensham, Peter J, 2005, News article analysing Victorian Essentials curriculum structure.

Forster, Margaret, 2001, A Policy Maker's Guide To System-wide Assessment Programs,
Australian Council for Educational Research, Camberwell, Vic.
http://www.acer.edu.au/research/documents/SystemwideAssessProg.pdf

Forster, Margaret, 2004, Address to Educators, Brisbane City Hall, Q.

Fuller, Andrew, 2003, Don’t waste your breath: An introduction to the mysterious world of
the adolescent brain, Inyahead Press, Queenscliff, Vic.
http://www.inyahead.com.au/Research/ResearchDocs/Don%27tWasteYourBreath.pdf

Fuller, Andrew, 2002, Valuing Boys, Valuing Girls: Celebrating Difference and Enhancing
Potential, Centre of Excellence in Teaching conference, Fremantle, WA.

Glasser, William 1998, The Quality School: Managing students without coercion,
HarperPerennial, New York.

KLA syllabi, QSA

New Basics, Productive Pedagogy and Assessment, Education Queensland

Masters, Geoff N & Forster, Margaret 2000, The Assessments we need, Australian
Council for Educational Research, Camberwell, Vic.
http://www.acer.edu.au/research/documents/Theassessmentsweneed.pdf

Maxwell, Graeme, 2003, discussions, QSA, Qld..

Productive Pedagogy and Assessment, EQ

Rowe, Kenneth J, 2000, Assessment, League Tables and School Effectiveness: Consider
the Issues and ‘Let’s Get Real’!, The Australian Council for Educational Research,
Australia, Journal of Educational Enquiry, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2000

See the future: The Middle Phase of Learning State School Action Plan 2003, Education
Queensland, Brisbane, Q.
http://education.qld.gov.au/etrf/pdf/midaction03.pdf

Biblography
Bosker, R., Kremers, E., & Lugthart, E. (1990). School and instructional effects on
mathematics achievement. School Effectiveness and School Improvement,
Vol. 1, pp. 213-248.
Bosker, R., & Scheerens, J. (1989). Issues in the interpretation of the results of
school effectiveness research. International Journal of Educational
Research, Vol. 13, p. 741-751.
Hill, P. & Rowe, K.J. (1998) Modelling student progress in studies of educational
effectiveness. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, Vol. 9, No. 3,
pp. 310-333.
Nisbet, J. (1993) Introduction. In OECD - Curriculum reform: Assessment in
question. Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Rowe, K.J., & Hill, P.W. (1996). Assessing, recording and reporting students’
educational progress: The case for ‘Subject Profiles’. Assessment in
Education, Vol. 3, pp. 309-352.
Scheerens, J., & Bosker, R. (1997) The foundations of educational effectiveness.
Oxford: Pergamon.
Tymms, P. (1993) Accountability – can it be fair? Oxford Review of Education,
Vol. 19, pp. 291-299.
(John Hattie, University of Auckland, ACER Conference 2005)
For other argument
Against validity of external measures of school success
 Problems of content validity, however, would appear to be less acute
in studies that have made use of public examination results, such as
the study reported by Tymms (1993), since public examinations are
designed to assess learning outcomes as set out in some detail in
syllabi on the basis of which it can be assumed that teachers and
schools have followed closely. Where examination scores have been
used as outcome measures, differences between classes and faculties
within schools are typically large and substantially greater than
differences among schools, although effects are not especially
consistent across faculties or from year to year. (in Rowe, 2000, p78).
Competition
Excerpts from All students reaching the top – strategies for closing academic
achievement gaps, Learning Point associates, North Central regional Education
laboratory, Illinois, USA, 2004
Re what we really teach and assess
Gordon (2001) also argues that the purpose of learning, and the teaching by which it
is enabled, is to acquire knowledge and technique to develop adaptive human
intellect. Developed abilities are not so much reflected in the specific discipline-based
knowledge a student may have, but in the student’s ability and disposition to
adaptively and efficiently use knowledge, technique, and values in mental processes
to engage and solve both common and novel problems.
In summary, intellective competence is more than what advanced societies understand
and measure as “intelligence.” Intellective competence reflects the integration of
academic content with mental processes such as reasoning and critical thinking
applied within an ever-changing but highly relevant social context, which results in
the mental activity that is necessary to make sense of experiences and to solve
problems. This end goal is less focused on what we want learners to know and know
how to do, and is more sharply focused on what we want learners to be and become—
compassionate and independently critical thinking members of humane communities.
From this perspective, intellective competence may be a reflection of intellective
character. P8
Re psychology
The social-psychological literature points to a clear message that feelings of trust in
the institution, and in those who are seen to represent the interests of those institutions
(e.g., teachers, professors, administrators), are a fundamental building block in the
affirmative development of high minority achievement (Bryk & Schneider, 2002;
Mendoza-Denton & Aronson, in press; Steele & Aronson, 1995, 2000). Yet
successful minority students are increasingly likely, as they move up the achievement
ladder, to encounter contexts and situations in which their group has been historically
excluded and underrepresented. P19
On the one hand, an important aspect of academic achievement comes from the
integration of academic success into the self-concept (Steele, 1992). Similarly, people
want to achieve mastery and have at least some control over their outcomes (Bandura,
1986). P19
From Personal Bests (PBs): A Multidimensional Perspective [R]
Andrew J. Martin SELF Research Centre, University of Western Sydney, Australia
This
The goal-setting literature shows that goals that are specific lead to higher levels of
performance (Locke & Latham, 1990). Specific goals seem to have their positive impact by reducing
the ambiguity about what is to be achieved (Locke, Chah, Harrison, & Lustgarten, 1989). One reason
PBs are adaptive, then, is because they are a clear standard to aim for. Whereas the mark or score
needed to outperform a competitor is often unknown, the mark or score needed to attain a PB is always
known. Goals also vary in terms of the level of challenge and it is on this dimension of challenge that
PBs are also relevant. By definition, the level of challenge or difficulty prescribed by a PB must be at
least higher than that of a previous best level of performance. In fact, it appears that the specificity and
difficulty of the goal interact such that specific and difficult goals yield higher levels of performance.
P1
There is more to PBs than simply the attainment of a standard. It is also the attainment of a
personalized standard – one that is set in relation to one’s own previous level of performance – that is
fundamental to PBs. It is the personalized element of PBs that distinguishes them from other goals and
that renders them a particularly powerful means of motivation. This brings into consideration two
factors: competitive self reference and self-improvement. The former relates to a competitive
orientation that is aligned more to competing with one’s own previous performance than with others.
The latter relates to a motivation to extend or build on previous levels of performance or attainment.
P1,2
Conclusion
The Quadripolar PB Model holds that students are most likely to reach PBs on tasks/goals that are (1)
specific, (2) challenging, (3) competitively self-referenced, and (4) focused on self-improvement. Such
a model, it is proposed, provides clearer direction for educators as to the precise nature of PBs and the
means to help students achieve them. Through consideration and application of the ideas presented in
this article, it is envisaged that students can become more engaged in school and their schoolwork and
more motivated to develop and improve themselves as students. p4
From Crossing The Bridge - Overcoming entrenched disadvantage through studentcentred learning, ROSALYN BLACK, Education Foundation Australia.
Disadvantage amongst young people is both a strong predictor and a result of low
engagement and achievement at school. It is increasingly a feature of specific
postcode areas, creating communities where low educational attainment and poor life
outcomes are becoming entrenched. The middle years of schooling are the years when
disadvantaged young people are most at risk of disengagement and early leaving. P7
Disadvantage encompasses a range of economic, social, cultural and political
exclusions that influence and are influenced by educational achievement. P8
There
is strong evidence that educational achievement in this country is significantly
determined by individual socio-economic status or social background as measured by
parents’ occupation. P8
“70 per cent of the variation between-schools can be accounted for in terms of
differences between schools in the social background of their students – 40 per cent
individual social background and 30 per cent the average social background of
students in the schools” (McGaw, 2006a) p8
The most affluent Australian students are on average three years of schooling ahead
of the least affluent in reading literacy (McGaw, 2006a). p8
Australian students from low socio-economic backgrounds are:
• Less likely to have educationally supportive social and physical infrastructure at
home
• Twice as likely to under-perform in literacy and numeracy
• More likely to have negative attitudes to school, truant, be suspended or expelled
and leave school early
• More likely to struggle with the transition from school to work
• Less likely to enter university or to succeed in further and vocational education
(Keating & Lamb, 2004; Productivity Commission, 2005;
Teese & Polesel, 2003; Thomson, 2002; Watson & Considine, 2003; Zappalà &
Considine, 2001). P8
“Students most acutely feel lack of a clear purpose or focus in the middle years of
secondary schooling. It is also in the middle years of schooling that current schooling
structures and classroom practices appear to be contributing to rather than
ameliorating many students’ negative feelings about their own worthiness and about
the value of their continued involvement in schooling”
(Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, 2004) p9
Educational engagement is an important schooling outcome in its own right. Students
who are engaged feel that they belong at school. They participate in the activities of
the school, value educational success and believe that education will benefit them. In
nearly every OECD country, the prevalence
of disengagement varies significantly from school to school. While it is affected by
external factors such as social background and geographic location, it is strongly
shaped by school factors including pedagogy and curriculum (Fullarton, 2002;
Murray, Mitchell, Gale, Edwards & Zyngier, 2004; Willms, 2003). P9
Most studies infer that disengagement from school causes poor achievement. Others
suggest that low achievement causes students to withdraw from school or that
engagement and achievement go hand-in-hand. Whatever its causative relationship,
disengagement is particularly linked to lack of success in the crucial middle years,
when the experience of adolescence can relate poorly to the experience of school
(Cole, 2001). P10
It generally begins in the last two years of primary school and is aggravated by the
transition to secondary school, but in disadvantaged schools, it happens earlier and
can be almost intractable by the time students reach Year 7 (Butler, Bond, Drew,
Krelle & Seal, 2005). One study suggests that all middle years students are at risk of
disengagement (Murray et al, 2004). P10
This situation is also costly at the social, economic and political levels. Early school
leaving and lower levels of education cost Australia an estimated $2.6 billion a year in
higher social welfare, health and crime prevention costs and lower tax revenue,
productivity and Gross Domestic Product. Its social impact is felt in greater intergenerational problems of low education, unemployment and poverty, decreased
participation in the political process and lower social cohesion and contribution to the
community. For every dollar that government invests in retaining early school leavers,
the expected return is as much as 3.2 times more (Department of Premier and
Cabinet, 2005; Muir, Maguire, Slack-Smith & Murray, 2003). P10
“Giving every single child the chance to be the best they can be, whatever their talent
or background, is not the betrayal of excellence, it is the fulfilment of it. Personalised
learning means high quality teaching that is responsive to the different ways students
achieve their best”
(Department for Education and Skills, 2004) p13
Internationally, the comparatively few schools that combine high student poverty with
high achievement have similar characteristics. They tailor learning and assessment to
individual student needs. They have a challenging curriculum that is connected to
students’ lives and that emphasises depth of understanding and control over one’s
learning. They also:
• Attain their good results through a deliberate process of school improvement and an
integrated approach to change that includes teaching, curriculum, assessment, school
organisation and school culture (Cole, 2001; Elmore, 2006b; Hill & Russell, 1999;
Kannapel & Clements, 2005; Murray et al, 2004; Newmann and Wehlage, 1995, in
Fullan, 2000). p15
“We’re trying to implement a curriculum that is very child-centred and a teacher
learning model that supports this, but we’re still measuring ourselves against
standard measures. We need a measure of actual improvement in student learning.
We want to know what difference we are making, in social competencies as well as
formal learning. The real question is what difference are we making to the students
and how could we do better”
(principal) p32
Value-added measurement measures how students progress and how much of this
progress can be attributed to the school or teacher after contextual factors like socioeconomic background are accounted for. The schools agree with other commentators
that its introduction in Victoria would allow schools to identify teaching practices that
work. It would recognise the achievements of schools in disadvantaged areas and
reward teachers making a significant difference to the lowest performing students
(Stewart, 2006). It could also “redescribe what it is we now recognise as a ‘successful
school’ ie one that adds most to the educational and social development of its pupils”
(Australian Secondary Principals’ Association, 1999). P33
It also found that schools in disadvantaged areas continue to face multiple barriers to
their efforts to improve student outcomes. These include:
• Lack of access to proven models of practice
• The challenge of building teacher knowledge and expertise
• The challenge of restructuring and reculturing the school to support student need and
teacher practice
• A poor fit between new practice and existing measures of student achievement
• Insufficient recognition of the value they add to student Outcomes p37
G. Gage Kingsbury University of Minnesota G. Gage Kingsbury (Ph.D., Psychology, University of
Minnesota, 1984) is the Director of Research for the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA)
An assessment system that serves students
A high-quality assessment system must meet accountability requirements, but it also
must serve the needs of each student enrolled in the schools. In order to achieve this
goal, the system might include the following components:
• Content standards that are fairly complete, and flexible to change;
• Performance standards that can be measured along a stable scale that measures
growth across grades;
• Measurement of student achievement that allows the identification of areas of strength
and areas of concern;
• Assessments that are targeted at each student’s instructional level, not the middle of a
grade range. Targeted tests or adaptive tests provide the most accurate measurement
available today.
• A model for examining school success that incorporates both status and growth. One
such model that is currently in use is the Hybrid Success Model. It incorporates
reasonable growth for each student as one aspect of success, and incorporates additional
growth that will bring every student to the proficiency level as another aspect.
Michelle Forster (senior researcher ACER)
Address to Educators City Hall Brisbane
Performance standards are only of value if teachers and students understand the
continuum underlying the standards. eg the summary decision A, B, C etc only have
meaning if they are drawn from existing well described continua of learnings.
etc
A
6
5
4
3
A
B
C
D
E
in year 9
B
C
D
E
in year 10
2
1
Some Design Principles (for systemic assessment)
from ‘The Assessments we need’ Geoff N Masters & Margaret Forster ACER
In this paper we consider some general requirements of large-scale assessment
programs if they are to provide useful feedback to decision making and be consistent
with—and so reinforce—current curriculum priorities. There are many design features
of assessment programs; our focus here is on just a few macro features and the
principles that underlie them. In particular, we focus on the kinds of learning
addressed, the range of assessment methods used, and the ways in which student
achievements are summarised and reported. We argue for:
1. designing assessment procedures primarily to establish where all students are in
their learning; (not whether they are passing a preset standard or not)
2. incorporating assessments of higher-order skills and thinking;
3. including a variety of assessment methods and procedures to provide information
about a range of valued learning outcomes; and
4. reporting results in ways that encourage high achievement.
The AUSTRALIAN MARCH 24 2006
The survey found Aboriginal students begin their schooling at a clear disadvantage to their
non-indigenous peers, with a difference in academic performance apparent from Year 1 and
the gap continuing to widen because children were rarely able to catch up. Telethon
Institute for Child Health Research
From The curse of being different 13 January 2007 New
Scientist
THE achievement gap between white and non-white students - indeed between any marginalised
group and the mainstream - is one of the most worrying and deep-seated problems in the US
educational system. It is conspicuous from pre-school to college and has resisted decades of
massive and costly educational reforms.
The problem stems in part from the stereotypes that society applies to such groups, which can
make individuals painfully aware of how critically they are viewed and can have a crippling impact
on their performance. Any situation that reinforces the stereotype - even something as simple as
checking off one's race or gender before a test - can threaten a person's sense of themselves as
good, competent and valued, which in turn raises anxiety.
The Basic Needs which provide the foundation for all motivation are: to be loving and
connected to others; to achieve a sense of competence and personal power; to act with a
degree of freedom and autonomy; to experience joy and fun; and to survive.
William glass MD http://www.choicetheory.com/ct.htm,