Rapid decline and gender disparities in the NAPLAN writing data
- PDF / 2,306,118 Bytes
- 20 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 94 Downloads / 149 Views
Rapid decline and gender disparities in the NAPLAN writing data Damon P. Thomas1 Received: 24 April 2019 / Accepted: 27 November 2019 © The Australian Association for Research in Education, Inc. 2019
Abstract The rapid decline in Australian students’ performance on the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) writing test is an issue of national concern. This paper presents the first investigation into patterns of achievement and progress on the NAPLAN writing test across the tested year levels (3, 5, 7 and 9) between 2011 and 2018, with a focus on gender differences. The findings reveal a considerable decline in writing performance for both genders over time, with a major disparity of up to 2 years of learning in test outcomes between male and female students. While performance of girls exceeded year-level standards when averaged over the 8 years, the average performance of boys was consistently below standards, with male students falling further behind female students across the school years. Yet average scores for both genders have declined significantly since 2011. Drawing on current international research into the teaching of writing and standardised writing tests, the paper considers two possible causes for this decline which are often communicated by education stakeholders: ineffective writing instruction, and issues with the design and implementation of the NAPLAN writing test. The paper calls for a national conversation about how we might effectively teach and assess writing. Keywords NAPLAN · Writing · Gender · Writing instruction · Primary school · High school
Introduction Writing is a skill that is basic to the economy, to people’s well-being and to their life trajectory. It underpins our activity and experiences in education, science, governance, law, the economy, religion and cultural life (MacArthur et al. 2016). Writing is essential for the day-to-day operations of most employees across all global industries * Damon P. Thomas [email protected] 1
College of Arts, Law and Education, University of Tasmania, Locked Bag 1307, Launceston, TAS 7250, Australia
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
D. P. Thomas
and services (US National Assessment Governing Board 2017). A person’s success in education, the workplace and broader society is strongly influenced by their capacity to write. Effective writing is highly complex and multifaceted (Beard et al. 2009). It relies on the nuanced combination of several fundamental components, from the mechanical (e.g. spelling, grammar and punctuation) to the creative (e.g. idea generation, contextually appropriate vocabulary and stylistic devices) (Graham and Harris 2017). Writing well requires deliberate choices at the word, sentence, paragraph and whole-text levels to meet the needs of a potentially divided readership and the purposes of many distinct text types (Christie and Derewianka 2008). Unfortunately, evidence from national testing suggests a large proportion of Australian school students struggle to write basic texts, with this number inc
Data Loading...
