EduResearch Matters

EduResearch Matters is a blog for educational researchers in Australia to get their work and opinions out to the general public. Please join us here. We would love to get your comments and feedback about our work.

Why you can’t identify gifted students using NAPLAN

Gifted and talented students, NAPLAN, , , ,

Some schools rely on NAPLAN results to identify gifted students, a trend that is leading to many high-potential learners being overlooked and neglected. New research outlines the mistake of using this standardised assessment as the only identification tool for giftedness when it was never designed or intended for this purpose.

There are over 400,000 gifted students in Australia’s schools (approximately 10% of school students), but there are no national identification practices or national means of collecting information about Australian school students who are gifted.It has been over 20 years since the last national inquiry into the education of gifted and talented children in Australia. Despite two senate inquiries (one in 1988 and one in 2001), there are no national initiatives aimed at reducing the impact of ongoing problems in identifying and supporting the needs of gifted learners. It is a national disgrace that gifted students are among some of the most underserved and neglected students in our schools.

The Contentious Belief in NAPLAN for Identifying Giftedness

In education, we constantly strive to uncover and nurture the gifts of our students and develop these into talents, hoping to unleash the full extent of their potential across their lifespan. In Australia, the National Assessment Program–Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) plays a controversial role in evaluating student performance and guiding educational policies and practices. However, there exists a contentious belief that NAPLAN data alone can accurately identify high-potential gifted students. In this blog post, I delve into the fallacy of exclusively using NAPLAN data to identify gifted students. 

A Snapshot of NAPLAN

NAPLAN is a nationwide standardised assessment, conducted annually in Australia, designed to assess the proficiency of students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9, in key learning areas, specifically reading, writing, language conventions, and numeracy. Its main goal is to gauge the effectiveness of the education system and pinpoint areas that may require improvement. NAPLAN was never designed, intended, or validated as a tool to identify giftedness. It was also never designed to make leagues tables for comparing schools.

What is giftedness?

Gifted students typically exhibit advanced cognitive abilities, exceptional problem-solving skills, and have a high capacity for critical thinking. They often demonstrate creativity, strong motivation to learn (in areas of interest), and an insatiable curiosity. In Australia, the terms gifted and talented are often used as synonyms where in fact they have separate meanings. Giftedness is defined using Gagné’s Differentiating Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT). In this Model, gifted individuals are understood to have (sometimes as yet unidentified) potential to excel across various domains, including intellectual, (e.g., general intelligence); creative (e.g., problem-solving); social (e.g., leadership); and motor control (e.g., agility).

On the other hand, the Model associates the term talent with performance, accomplishment or achievement, which is outstanding mastery of competencies in a particular field. The term talented is used to only describe individuals who are among the top 10 percent of peers (e.g., leading experts in their field) in any of nine competencies, including academic (e.g., mathematics); technical (e.g., engineering); science and technology (e.g., medical); the arts (e.g., performing); or sports (e.g., athletic talents).

Giftedness seems to be a misunderstood word in Australia. It is often incorrectly construed as referring to people who apparently ‘have it all’, whatever the elusive ‘it’ might be! Anyone who has any experience with giftedness would know that this is an elitist and unrealistic view of gifted learners and indeed, gifted education. In Australian education systems that are based on Gagné’s Model, giftedness focuses on an individual’s potential and ways to foster that potential through programs and practices that support the development of giftedness into talent.

Identifying Giftedness

The quest to identify gifted students has been a long-standing objective for education systems that seek to be genuinely inclusive. Research recommends that we should aim to identify exceptional potential as early as possible, providing tailored education to further nurture abilities. Naturally, the notion of using standardised test data, such as NAPLAN results, can be appealing because of its relative ease of implementation and data generated. But giftedness is not always demonstrated through achievement or performance. Rather, what NAPLAN may identify is some form of talent if we are using Gagné’s definitions.

Giftedness can coexist with other exceptionalities, such as disabilities, where a student is said to be twice-exceptional (or a gifted learner with disability). The twice-exceptionality stems from the two exceptionalities—individuals who are gifted (exceptional potential ) and have coexisting disabilities (e.g., learning, physical, or emotional), and therefore, require unique educational support that addresses both exceptionalities.

Why is Identification Important?

Many students can have their educational needs addressed in a typical classroom, but gifted learners often need specific interventions (e.g., extension, acceleration), or something different (e.g., specific curriculum differentiation), that engages their potential, in areas such as creativity, problem-solving, and curiosity, to develop these natural abilities into competencies and mastery.

There remains a persistent myth that gifted students are so clever that they will always do just fine on their own, without specific support. Yet, we would never expect a gifted tennis player, or a gifted violinist to do “just fine” on their own—the expectation would be for expert, tailored coaching along with extensive opportunities for practice and rehearsal to develop the student’s potential. Coaches focus on the individual needs of the student, rather than a standardised teaching program designed to suit most, but not all. Still, in Australia many claim to have misgivings about introducing anything ‘special’ for gifted students, while not having the same reservations with respect to athletically gifted or musically gifted students.

What Happens if Gifted Learners are Not Supported?

Failing to support the unique needs of gifted students at school can have significant and detrimental consequences on the students and on education systems and societies. Gifted students who are not appropriately challenged and supported may become disengaged and underachieve academically. Some researchers have estimated that 60%-75% of gifted students may be underachieving.

Becoming bored in the classroom can cause disruptive behaviour and a lack of interest in school, leading to problems such as school ‘refusal’ or ‘school can’t’, disengagement and school ‘drop out’ (estimated at up to 40% of gifted students). This perpetuates a cycle of missed opportunities and undeveloped potential. Furthermore, without appropriate support, gifted students may struggle with social and emotional challenges, feeling isolated from their peers because of their unique interests and abilities. This can lead to anxiety, depression, or other mental health issues.

When gifted students are not recognised and supported so that their giftedness can be transformed into talents, they may develop feelings of inadequacy or imposter syndrome. This can lead to decreased self-efficacy and self-confidence. Failing to identify and support gifted students means missing out on nurturing exceptional gifts that deprives the world of potential future leaders, innovators, medical researchers, and change-makers.

Gifted students from diverse backgrounds, including those from underrepresented or disadvantaged groups, may face additional barriers to identification and support. NAPLAN can be particularly problematic as a misused identification tool for underrepresented populations. Neglecting identification, and subsequently neglecting to address gifted students’ unique needs perpetuates inequity.

Societies and education systems that do not embrace inclusion and equity to the full extent risk continuing cycles of exclusion and inadequate support for giftedness. The OECD makes it clear that equity and quality are interconnected, and that improving equity in education should be a high priority. In Australia, priority equity groups never include giftedness or twice-exceptionality, and fail to recognise intersectionality of equity cohorts (e.g., gifted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students), further compounding disadvantage. When schools fail to support gifted students, these learners can become disengaged and leave school prematurely, impacting social wellbeing and economic growth, and representing a missed opportunity for education environments to be truly inclusive. Inclusive education must mean that everyone is included, not everyone except gifted learners.

The Fallacy Unveiled: Limitations of NAPLAN Data to Identify Giftedness

While NAPLAN may have some merits as a standardised assessment tool, problems have been identified and there have even been calls to scrap the tests altogether. So, it is vital to recognise NAPLAN’s limitations, especially concerning the identification of high-potential gifted students. Some key factors that contribute to the fallacy are the narrow assessment scope, because NAPLAN primarily focuses on literacy and numeracy skills. While these are undoubtedly critical foundational skills, they do not encapsulate the full spectrum of giftedness. Moreover, the momentary snapshot provided by NAPLAN of a student’s performance on a particular day may not accurately represent their true capabilities. Factors such as test anxiety, external distractions, or personal issues can significantly impact test outcomes, masking a student’s actual potential.

Giftedness often entails the capacity to handle complexity and to think critically across various domains. Standardised tests like NAPLAN do not effectively measure the multidimensionality of giftedness (from academic precocity, or potential to achieve academically, to creative thinking and problem solving). Relying solely on NAPLAN data to identify gifted students overlooks those who have potential to excel in non-traditional fields or those who possess such unique gifts.

Embracing Comprehensive Identification Practices

To accurately identify and cultivate giftedness, we must embrace a comprehensive and holistic approach for the purpose of promoting inclusive and supportive educational environments, and for developing talent. Using data from multiple sources in identifying giftedness, including both objective and subjective measures (i.e., comprehensive identification) is the gold standard.  

Comprehensive identification practices involve using multiple measures to identify giftedness, with the expectation that appropriate educational support follows. These identification practices should be accessible, equitable, and comprehensive to make sure identification methods are as broad as possible. Comprehensive identification may consist of student portfolios showcasing their projects, psychometric assessment, artwork, essays, or innovative solutions students have devised. This allows educators to gain a deeper understanding of a gifted student’s interests, passions, abilities, and potential.

Additionally, engaging parents, peers, and the student in the identification process can yield valuable perspectives on a student’s unique strengths and gifts, activities and accomplishments, which they may be involved in outside school. This may offer a more well-rounded evaluation. Experienced educators who have completed professional learning in gifted education could play a crucial role in recognising gifted traits in their students. 

By appropriately identifying, recognising, and addressing the needs of gifted students, we can create inclusive and enriched educational settings that foster the development of gifted potential in education environments that are genuinely inclusive.

 

Michelle Ronksley-Pavia is a Special Education and Inclusive Education lecturer in the School of Education and Professional Studies, and a researcher with the Griffith Institute for Educational Research (GIER), Griffith University. She is an internationally recognised award-winning researcher working in the areas of gifted education, twice-exceptionality (gifted students with disability), inclusive education, learner diversity, and initial teacher education. Her work centres on disability, inclusive educational practices, and gifted and talented educational practices and provisions. 

NAPLAN: Where have we come from – where to from here?

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With the shift to a new reporting system and the advice from ACARA that the NAPLAN measurement scale and time series have been reset, now is as good a time as any to rethink what useful insights can be gleaned from a national assessment program.

The 2023 national NAPLAN results were released last week, accompanied by more than the usual fanfare, and an overabundance of misleading news stories. Altering the NAPLAN reporting from ten bands to four proficiency levels, thereby reducing the number of categories students’ results fall into, has caused a reasonable amount of confusion amongst public commentators, and many excuses to again proclaim the demise of the Australian education system. 

Moving NAPLAN to Term 1, with all tests online (except Year 3 writing) seems to have had only minimal impact on the turnaround of results.

The delay between the assessments and the results has been a limitation to the usefulness of the data for schools since NAPLAN began. Added to this, there are compelling arguments that NAPLAN is not a good individual student assessment, shouldn’t be used as an individual diagnostic test, and is probably too far removed from classroom learning to be used as a reliable indicator of which specific teaching methods should be preferred. 

But if NAPLAN isn’t good for identifying individual students’ strengths and weaknesses, thereby informing teacher practices, what is it good for?

My view is that NAPLAN is uniquely powerful in its capacity to track population achievement patterns over time, and can provide good insights into how basic skills develop from childhood through to adolescence. However, it’s important that the methods used to analyse longitudinal data are evaluated and interrogated to ensure that conclusions drawn from these types of analyses are robust and defensible.

Australian governments are increasingly interested in students’ progress at school, rather than just their performance at any one time-point. The second Gonski review (2018) was titled Through Growth to Achievement. In a similar vein, the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration (2019) signed by all state, territory and federal education ministers, argued,

“Literacy and numeracy remain critical and must also be assessed to ensure learning growth is understood, tracked and further supported” (p.13, my italics)

Tracking progress over time should provide information about where students start and how fast they progress, and ideally, allow  insights into whether policy changes at the system or state level have any influence on students’ growth.

However, mandating a population assessment designed to track student growth, does not always translate to consistent information or clear policy directions – particularly when there are so many stakeholders determined to interpret NAPLAN results via their own lens.

One recent example of contradictory information arising from NAPLAN, relates to whether students who start with poor literacy and numeracy results in Year 3 fall further behind as they progress through school. This phenomenon is known as the Matthew Effect. Notwithstanding widespread perceptions that underachieving students make less progress on their literacy and numeracy over their school years compared with higher achieving students, our new research found no evidence of Matthew Effects in NAPLAN data from NSW and Victoria.

In fact, we found the opposite pattern. Students who started with the poorest NAPLAN reading comprehension and numeracy test results in Year 3 had the fastest growth to Year 9. Students who started with the highest achievement largely maintained their position but made less progress.

Our results are opposite to those of an influential Grattan Institute Report published in 2016. This report used NAPLAN data from Victoria and showed that the gap in ‘years of learning’ widened over time. Importantly, this report applied a transformation to NAPLAN data before mapping growth overall, and comparing the achievement of different groups of students.

After the data transformation the Grattan Report found,  

“Low achieving students fall ever further back. Low achievers in Year 3 are an extra year behind high achievers by Year 9. They are two years eight months behind in Year 3, and three years eight months behind by Year 9.” (p.2)

How do we reconcile this finding with our research? My conclusion is that these opposing findings are essentially due to different data analysis decisions.

Without the transformation of data applied in the Grattan Report, the variance in NAPLAN scale scores at the population level decreases between Year 3 and Year 9. This means that there’s less difference between the lowest and highest achieving students in NAPLAN scores by Year 9. Reducing variance over time can be a feature of horizontally-equated Rasch-scaled assessments – and it is a limitation of our research, noted in the paper.

There are other limitations of NAPLAN scores outlined in the Grattan Technical report. These were appropriately acknowledged in the analytic strategy of our paper and include, modelling the decelerating growth curves, accounting for problems with missing data, allowing for heterogeneity in starting point and rate of progress, modelling measurement error, and so on. The latent growth model analytic design that we used is very suited to examining research questions about development, and the type of data generated by NAPLAN assessments.

In my view, the nature of the Rasch scores generated by the NAPLAN testing process does not require a score transformation to model growth in population samples. Rasch scaled scores do not need to be transformed into ‘years of progress’ – and indeed doing so may only muddy the waters.

For example, I don’t think it makes sense to say that a child is at a Year 1 level in reading comprehension based on NAPLAN because the skills that comprise literacy are theoretically different at Year 1 compared with Year 3. We already make a pretty strong assumption with NAPLAN that the tests measure the same theoretical construct from Year 3 to Year 9. Extrapolating outside these boundaries is not something I would recommend.

Nonetheless, the key takeaway from the Grattan report, that “Low achieving students fall ever further back” (p.2) has had far reaching implications. Governments rely on this information when defining the scope of educational reviews (of which there are many), and making recommendations about such things as teacher training (which they do periodically). Indeed, the method proposed by the Grattan report was that used by a recent Productivity Commission report, which subsequently influenced several Federal government education reviews. Other researchers use the data transformation in their own research, when they could use the original scores and interpret standard deviations for group-based comparisons.

Recommendations that are so important at a policy level should really be underpinned by robustly defended data analysis choices. Unfortunately the limitations of an analytic strategy can often be lost because stakeholders want takeaway points not statistical debates. What this example shows is that data analysis decisions can (annoyingly) lead to opposing conclusions about important topics.

Where to from here

Regardless of which interpretation is closer to the reality, NAPLAN 2023 represents something of a new beginning for national assessments in Australia. The key change is that from 2023 the time series for NAPLAN will be reset. This means that schools and states technically should not be comparing this year’s results with previous years. 

The transformation to computer adaptive assessments is also now complete. Ideally this should ensure more precision in assessing the achievement of students at the both ends of the distribution – a limitation of the original paper-based tests. 

Whether the growth patterns observed in the old NAPLAN will remain in the new iteration is not clear: we’ll have to wait until 2029 to replicate our research, when the 2023 Year 3s are in Year 9.  

Sally Larsen is a Lecturer in Learning, Teaching and Inclusive Education at the University of New England. Her research is in the area of reading and maths development across the primary and early secondary school years in Australia, including investigating patterns of growth in NAPLAN assessment data. She is interested in educational measurement and quantitative methods in social and educational research. You can find her on Twitter @SallyLars_27

 

 

 



What happens when the science of reading fails

Reading, teaching reading, , ,

Yes! There’s the science of reading but there’s also the art of reading, here’s why we need both. 

Reading is a complex task and one necessary for success in life. It involves an understanding of how printed texts include letters that make certain sounds and combinations of letters to join these sounds to make words. The ultimate goal of reading is to comprehend the meaning of a string of words so that you can learn about different topics and/or enjoy stories. 

But many students find learning to read difficult. And reasons for this vary greatly. Some research says certain incidents such as trauma might affect brain development. Also, some brains may be atypical and therefore need different ways to help them work. But it may not just be cognitive impairments that impact on children’s reading ability. 

Understandably, a number of opinions and approaches are offered in the research literature regarding the most effective approach to teaching reading, some controversial. Many note different competencies needed for fluent reading including constrained and unconstrained skills. In addition, many commercial programs that are not evidence-based have been developed to address student learning needs in reading. 

Given reading is so vital to success in life it is critical we support students who find reading hard. Such a concern is a focus for many governments and it often becomes personal because people want what is best for children. I hope that this blog can help people understand there are two (if not more) ways of thinking about supporting readers. That is from both a science of reading approach AND an art of reading philosophy.

The science of reading

The science of reading (SoR) represents “best practices for reading instruction” identified through scientific methods. SoR explores what the brain does when we read. Known as neuroscience, evidence suggests that several cognitive processes are required for competent readers. When these processes go wrong researchers in the science of reading offer different strategies that teachers can use to help their students.

In my research with expert speech pathologists, we offered a manualised approach involving intense intervention for students based on the Simple View of Reading or SVR. The SVR involves two parts to being able to read fluently. These are word recognition and language comprehension. Word recognition involves being able to decode printed words on the page and language comprehension is how we make meaning from a group of words.

Another approach is to use decodable readers. Decodable readers are books that slowly introduce specific letters and sounds, that is, each book covers a grapheme-phoneme combination such as at, ow or ai. They are often repetitive, ensuring the child can learn these combinations in early reading programs.

But what happens when even these approaches fail children? I believe some interventions that stem from cognitive science do help struggling readers but we also need to inject special care, compassion and perhaps more emotive approaches to support what might be impacting students’ ability to read. This is why the art of reading is equally important.  

The art of reading

Do you remember your favourite book as a child? It may have been one you read yourself or one read to you. What was it about the book that attracted you? The art of reading refers to the pleasure you feel when reading books or “celebrating your power to turn shapes on a page into a lifelong adventure”.

According to the OECD, reading for pleasure or enjoyment is “an important prerequisite to becoming an effective learner” and continues to influence adult motivation and skill. Many authors skillfully write books using literary devices that can also spark our imagination. In fact, books can take us to many places, help us become better citizens, and extend our knowledge across different topics.

If reading is difficult, there are still many ways that we can help children ‘access’ books and stories such as being read to. Mem Fox, a world renowned Australian Children’s book author has a wonderful website explaining how to read aloud to children. She notes that reading aloud can foster an “essential enchanting engagement with books, stories, rhymes and songs”. 

Storytelling is also an important part of learning to read. For many cultures, learning comes first through oral language and much research has explored the connection between oral language and early reading success. Stories enable cultural continuity and heritage and are a powerful way to share knowledge. Therefore, the art of reading acknowledges that the reading process can be both social and cultural.

The art of reading is a philosophy that sees the beauty in texts. It is a process that should be enjoyed. It relates to the literary prowess of the written word and how they engage and inspire us to be better people. Certainly, the Australian Curriculum espouses that learning English “ helps create confident communicators, imaginative thinkers and informed citizens. It is through the study of English that individuals learn to analyse, understand, communicate and build relationships with others and with the world around them”.

If our own curriculum and others around the world acknowledge the beauty and power in being able to read, then why are we still saying one approach is better over others?

Perhaps it comes down to people’s own personal philosophies in life and how we view success. Yes, reading is critical to post-schooling success, without adequate reading skills we limit the ways in which we can communicate with others. We also limit our capacity to be employed. But being successful is not just about earning potential but also how we relate to others and what we can contribute back to society.

It is ok to agree to disagree. Ultimately, we all want the best for every child so for me, it’s like tacos – why don’t we have both! “Porque no los dos?” Because if we don’t we might have fluent readers but we won’t have readers who see the beauty and joy in life.

Georgina Barton is a professor in the School of Education at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. At USQ, She is the discipline lead for literacy and pedagogy.

Site outage

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Hello readers,

You may have noticed the AARE site has been inconsistent lately. We are having some issues with the site and also with distribution through email of our blog. We apologise. The blog will be taking a short break while we try to fix the issues. We have some fantastic posts coming up and will send an email when we are up and running again.

Thanks for your patience.

Jenna on behalf of AARE

Why the future of professional experience is now in peril

initial teacher education, Professional experience, Teacher Education Expert Panel (TEEP), , , ,

Performance funding for initial teacher education, mandating core curriculum and improving the quality of Professional Experience are issues raised in the new TEEP report that require our urgent attention. 

Equally, concerns stemming from teacher workforce shortages, the changing nature of teachers’ work, and the increasing diversity and complexity of students highlight new and additional pressures on employers and initial teacher education providers to prepare the future workforce. 

But let us draw your attention to the language change within the report from “professional experience” to “practical experience”.  This might seem a subtle and slight shift in terminology, there are ramifications for how this positions pre-service teachers, supervising teachers, teacher educators and the profession more broadly. 

This is because this change in language is intentional and is emblematic of the policy shift influencing the work of initial teacher education providers. Practical Experience is an outdated term phased out in the 1990s as it was heavily critiqued for being overly technical and simplistic (LeCornu, 2016). Practical Experience was the terminology used when the field was under-theorised, under-resourced and under-valued. Through a strong research agenda, many academics have worked to define and advocate for the use of the term “professional” as it bridges the theory/practice divide and captures the complexity of the field. 

As leading academics on a national steering committee for Australian Professional Experience (NADPE), we are at the intersection of practice. 

We work in the space where initial teacher education, early childhood education, teaching and school leadership overlap.  Our roles provide us with unique perspectives about teaching and education. Because of this, we are concerned about this language change and what it represents. 

What happens when you take the profession out of Professional Experience? 

We are accustomed to being featured in the many reviews and reports on initial teacher education. Historically, Professional Experience has been positioned as everything from problematic and under-theorised excursions into classrooms, the saviour where pre-service teachers engage in the real work of teaching, or the solution to the theory/practice divide. 

But this report feels different. It positions Professional Experience as a weapon to introduce the core content into schools and is symbolic of the deprofessionaliation policy shift in teacher education.   

Teaching is a profession. It requires a high degree of specialised knowledge, continuous updating through professional learning, and is subject to regulation and registration that mandate standards and ethical behaviour.  

The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) was established to provide a national framework for strengthening capacity at all career stages within the teaching profession.  The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers were developed by AITSL to raise and recognise teaching as a profession and to map this professional knowledge, practice and engagement across career phases.  The Standards contribute to the status of Australia’s education system as complex, sophisticated and regulated and ensure that it meets the current and future needs of all learners, from birth and within and across life stages.  We see removing the profession from Professional Experience as a backward step in maintaining a high-quality education system as it fails to acknowledge the level of expertise and specialised practice of teacher educators and does not account for the theorising of practice that occurs within Professional Experience and what it contributes to teaching practice across career phases.  

Professional Experience is a well-established term in the literature and within the lexicon of school leaders, teachers and AITSL.  The Institute has developed a range of resources and commissioned valuable work to support initial teacher education providers to deliver high-quality Professional Experience programs through its collaboration with industry and across Australia’s diverse contexts. 

At the core of this approach is educational research and theory that drives contemporary, evidence-based practice.  Over the past decade, Australian teacher educators and educational researchers have contributed to world-standard research into the circumstances and conditions of high-quality Professional Experience within initial teacher education.  This literature and practice have shown to be of significant value to the development of graduates and to the schools and systems that partner with universities around this work.  

Teaching practitioners have a fundamental role to play in preparing future teachers.  Their work in collaboration with teacher educators provides the necessary relationship between the knowledge that underpins contemporary, evidence-based practice and the skills, knowledge and perspectives necessary for effective application.  

The interdependence of these components is inherent in quality initial teacher education around the globe.  

Reducing the role of teacher educators to practitioners does not value the breadth of their roles within this sophisticated interdependence nor the expertise they bring to it.  By replacing “profession” with “practical” in Professional Experience, we risk minimising the moral and ethical decision-making, engagement with social justice concerns, identity work and sense of self-efficacy inherent within these influential components of initial teacher education programs. There is a risk that we return to an approach where there was a greater disconnection between schools and universities, limited resources for research and innovation in the field, and undermined the credibility of those who work in Professional Experience.

We agree with the report that highlights experience in schools as supporting pre-service teachers to develop their skills and expertise in the classroom and agree that it is and should remain a priority area. 

Indeed, the focus, discussion about and support for Professional Experience is long overdue. We applaud proposed investments in mentoring to support school-based teacher educators to continue the important work they do at a difficult time within the sector.  However, de-professionalising the field will not lead to improved outcomes.  It flags an intention to shift this work (and the knowledge that drives it) away from highly experienced teacher educators and educational researchers and into the realm of practitioners. This is problematic as effective Initial teacher education requires contributions from both teacher educators and practitioners. We therefore call for the preservation of the term “Professional Experience” to ensure the legacy of research and advocacy associated with this term is maintained to ensure that the expertise and theoretical underpinnings of Professional Experience are recognised.

From left to right: Jennifer Clifton is an Associate Professor at QUT, President-elect of the Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA) and the Queensland representative for NADPE. Susan Ledger is Head of School – Dean of Education at University of Newcastle and chair of the NADPE Steering Group. Chad Morrison is Associate Dean: Equity, Diversity & Inclusion in the School of Education at Murdoch University and deputy chair of the NADPE Steering Group. Brendan Bentley is a senior lecturer in the School of Education at Adelaide University and the deputy chair of the NADPE Steering Group.

Header image found at Classroom Observation Specifics to Create Positive Growth

This is mistaken and disrespectful – a wasted opportunity

Jason Clare, Minister for Education, Teacher Education Expert Panel (TEEP), Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group, , , , ,

Teacher educators have been driving improvement in initial teacher education for decades. That’s been clear from as early as 1998 when the Australian Council of Deans of Education released “Preparing a Profession: Report of the National Standards  and Guidelines for Initial  Teacher Education Project”.  The report outlined the first program standards for ITE and, as a professional group, teacher educators have initiated, co-designed and willingly responded to reforms ever since. But one of the things which is striking about the Teacher Education Expert Panel (TEEP) report – and several other reports of this nature – is that a very narrow selection of evidence is relied upon  while much of the rigorous evidence, thoughtful scholarship and good practice within teacher education have been ignored. The very people who have conducted research in the area and who know the field and the broader context have been excluded. More importantly, much of the rigorous evidence, thoughtful scholarship and good practice within teacher education have been ignored. The assumption that teacher educators are not motivated to continuously improve their programs without punitive measures or financial incentives is mistaken, disrespectful and represents a wasted opportunity to work more constructively with the sector.   

These are some of the key reasons the Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA) and the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE), held a joint forum focused on responding to the TEEP report, Strong Beginnings, which has recommendations across four domains: strengthening ITE programs to deliver confident effective beginning teachers; strengthening the link between performance and funding of ITE programs; improving the quality of practical experiences in teaching; and improving access to postgraduate ITE for mid-career entrants. 

And on Tuesday evening, nearly 200 teacher educators across Australian states and territories,  and internationally in England and Lebanon, came together to listen to a panel of five invited distinguished academics: Jenny Gore, Deb Hayes, Viv Ellis, Donna Pendergast who had publicly commented on the TEEP report. The fifth panellist, Michelle Simons, was a member of the Teacher Education Expert Panel and provided insight into the development of the report. 

TEEP was described variously by panellists as ‘a turning point’, ‘a missed opportunity’, ‘a rupture in the discourse of initial teacher education’ and’ disappointing’. And we, as teacher educators, had been tipped off before the release of the report – media coverage involving some panel members anticipated, even at the release of the discussion paper, that education academics would not like the results of the review. This belief was based upon a notion that teacher educators have a vested interest in maintaining  the status quo and are somehow resistant to change.  Yet most education academics’ ‘vested interest’ is in providing the very best initial teacher education, much like surgeons have a ‘vested interest’ in survival rates of patients and engineers have a ‘vested interest’ in building bridges that don’t fall down.

Donna Pendergast advised we must not consider TEEP in isolation. It comes alongside a range of other reviews affecting the higher education sector, such as the Universities Accord Interim Report and the forthcoming  review for the Better and Fairer Education System. They all talk about the importance of teachers and teachers’ work and the role of initial teacher education. These reports  will inevitably interact. And, Pendergast continued, it’s important not to forget we are still in the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) cycle of reform. There has been zero evidence to date  about the effectiveness of that particular review and now we find ourselves in the middle of a new one. This is a missed opportunity. 

“Most of the initiatives, recommendations and ideas that we saw in the TEEP report were not directed at transforming our system, but in fact, at the crisis around teacher shortages, and so ITE has become the vehicle for trying to diffuse and redirect the political space.” Donna Pendergast

A further theme raised across the panellists was that specifying core content, government over-prescription of any kind, has not been justified and will result in cookie cutter education programs which are the antithesis of what we need to attract and prepare a diverse teacher workforce.

New research from Viv Ellis’s team at Monash shows, resoundingly, that teachers felt their ITE had prepared them well for the classroom. That trope, that teachers don’t think teacher education is any good, is one of five prevailing myths he spoke about. The others are that universities don’t do as they are told; phonics is only taught at one university; university degrees are highly influenced by liberal arts and sociology; and that England should be a role model for Australia. But a country which has falling life expectancy, inconsistent and even poor health care, endless economic damage caused by Brexit; in his view, that is hardly a model Australia should follow.

The TEEP represents an odd juncture for initial teacher education. Despite the election of a new, now Labor, government, in some ways TEEP represents a link to the previous Coalition government, particularly the review of quality teacher education led by former Education Minister Alan Tudge. It appears that new education minister Jason Clare, wants to implement and carry forward the recommendations of the former government: strengthening initial teacher education and the linking of performance indicators of ITE to funding, strangely, as a solution to the problems of teacher shortages and teacher attrition. The minister also wants to review professional experience (and the AARE blog will have more on that tomorrow) and to explore the chronic teacher shortage.

What TEEP represents really is a significant turning point in the conversation around teacher education. Those myths noted by Ellis dominate the discourse – and now there’s the equally pernicious  claim that current ITE is not informed by evidence, a claim that is not borne out by the robust bodies of evidence that currently inform the ITE curriculum. 

Despite the challenges posed by TEEP,  the closing commentary from the audience referred to the development of a sense of shared purpose and a desire to be united in terms of what happens next. While acknowledging significant concerns about the TEEP report and its outward-facing representations of teacher education, there were nevertheless some  ‘cracks of light’ continue to shine through. There is now an opportunity to work collaboratively and collectively to respond to this latest review. 

Yet as teacher educators and educational researchers, we also need to remain vigilant and stand up and be heard, and call out the ‘turning point’ moment that this report represents.  One challenge is to ensure alternative visions for education and ITE are heard; what we need more of is research-informed discussions about the kinds of teachers we need, and how best to prepare them for the changing world.  

From left to right: Ange Fitzgerald is professor and associate dean (education) in the School of Education at RMIT University. Terri Bourke is  president of the Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA) and Academic Lead Research in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership at QUT. Julie McLeod is President of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) and Professor of Curriculum, Equity and Social Change at the University of Melbourne Graduate School of Education.

Rich or poor, we wanted to know what was unfair at school now

inequity in schooling, , , , ,

Australians don’t support educational inequity, so why do we accept a system that creates it?

What is ‘fair’ in education? This is an important question in a country like Australia, where our school system features considerable inequality in resourcing. It is common knowledge that some schools in this country are much better resourced than others, especially those which charge high fees.

But does this matter? If parents wish to spend more money on their children’s schooling, is it fair enough that they should be able to do so? Or does it depend on the outcome of this additional spending?

What do you think?

In an article recently published in the Australian Educational Researcher, we report on the fairness perceptions of a sample of 1,999 Australian adults who participated in a survey conducted in NSW in 2019. We asked respondents a range of questions including whether it is fair that children of affluent families attend schools with more resources; whether children of high-income earners should receive a better-quality education because their parents pay more taxes; and whether they felt a scenario in which children from high-income and low-income families attended schools with respectively more or less qualified and experienced teachers, performed more or less well on nationwide tests, was fair or unfair.

We found that there was a relatively even split between respondents who believe it is fair and those who believed it is unfair that children of affluent families attend schools with ‘more resources’. However, respondents were more likely to perceive inequality as unfair or very unfair when it comes to educational quality (59%) or educational experiences derived from differences in teachers’ qualification and experience (62%).

Additionally, we found that self-interest (being a parent, or experiencing financial comfort) and neoliberal orientations (favouring policy emphasising individual students’ responsibility, school competition, and performance-based school funding) predicted people’s fairness perceptions, with such respondents more likely to perceive educational inequality depicted in the questions and the scenario as fair.

But overall, our results suggest that Australians are divided about the fairness of parents ‘purchasing’ additional resources for their children; yet the majority tend to consider it unfair when unequal educational opportunities are directly linked to unequal educational outcomes.

And yet, the ‘purchasing’ of a place in a fee charging school is indeed linked to unequal educational outcomes. Enrolling in a private school is not just a matter of having access to a swimming pool or castle-esque library; the differences are not merely recreational or aesthetic. Indeed, the more insidious, and perhaps less commonly understood impact is in the ‘peer effect’ created via socio-economic segregation, as Michael Sciffer explained recently in The Conversation. Allowing students to be grouped into schools based on parental financial capacities has an impact on individual students’ achievements – on both ends of the spectrum. This is not because the students in these groups are more or less talented, but because of the dominant socio-cultural norms and knowledges that the system privileges, and the way in which this is reflected in the particular educational outcomes assessed within it.

So, we wondered: if most Australians do not support such inequity, then why do we continue to have a school system that actively creates it?

Perhaps Australians need a better understanding of how our current school system operates as a mechanism of social reproduction. While school funding may be a common topic of conversation at your local park or pub, perhaps the inequitable effects of a system in which a privileged peer group can be ‘purchased’ via fees is something that needs to be added to those conversations.

This is important because if the public better understood the inequitable effects of our current school system, then our survey data suggest there could be considerable public pressure to change it.

And this, by extension, would suggest that policymakers are not, at present, adequately responding to the views of the public they have been elected to represent. While pursuing fairer funding models is essential, addressing segregation effects created by our differentiated school system should also be a political imperative.

The Australian school system continues to perpetuate socioeconomic inequality, and this appears to contradict the fairness perceptions of most Australians. Policymakers therefore need to respond more effectively to the Australian public’s views.

Meghan Stacey is a lecturer in the School of Education at UNSW Sydney. Meghan’s primary research interests sit at the intersection of sociological theory, policy sociology and the experiences of those subject to systems of education and is a former high school English and drama teacher.  Meghan is on Twitter @meghanrstacey.

Jung-Sook Lee is an associate professor in the School of Social Sciences UNSW. Her research focuses on educational and social policy provisions to break the cycle of intergenerational disadvantages. In 2020, she was recognized as one of the world’s top two per cent of researchers in her field (Stanford’s World Ranking of Scientists). 

Why our communities need the power of a voice

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, Community engagement, , , , ,

The referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament is a pivotal moment in Australia’s history of engagement with its Indigenous peoples. Amidst the ongoing, at times polarising, debates about The Voice, we gathered at La Trobe School of Education for a one-day workshop focused on fostering social justice through the frame of community engagement. 

Community engagement is about voice, and can be a powerful catalyst for equity and justice. It is grounded in the recognition of voice as a political project that hinges on not only the ability to speak but also to be heard. 

While the discussions that emerged in our workshop did not directly address the question of an Indigenous Voice, there were some uncanny parallels that we aim to tease out in this article. These include, among others, recognising that:

  • community engagement requires asking courageous questions.
  • community engagement is slow and persistent work.
  • community engagement requires adequate resourcing.
  • community engagement tackles deficit assumptions.
  • community engagement starts from those problems that matter.  
  • community engagement can ensure quality.

Community engagement requires asking courageous questions.

Community engagement for social justice and equity requires us to ask courageous questions about the oppressive conditions (past and present) that perpetuate marginalisation. This can amount to ‘truth-telling’. 

During his online keynote address, Tyrone Howard, from UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies, emphasised that equity requires us to repair the historical harm. It also needs us to promote inclusion by examining our ‘blind spots’ that might prevent us from seeing the suffering of others, and how we might be implicated in them.

The education field is political. Thus, as Tyrone Howard noted, teachers must be equipped with the necessary tools and awareness to confront these blind spots. By preparing educators to navigate contemporary issues with a keen eye for (in)justice, we can foster more equitable educational spaces that represent and celebrate our diversity.

Community engagement is slow and persistent work.

Community engagement demands unwavering commitment and perseverance driven by a clear sense of purpose. Jo Lampert from Monash University raised concerns about the taken-for-granted use of the term ‘community engagement’ and its insufficient integration into initial teacher education programs. 

To rectify this, one must take a deliberate approach to work with vulnerable communities. This approach centres on co-design, shared decision-making and partnerships that prioritise their lived experiences and voices of those on the margins. 

The call for community engagement in pursuit of equity and justice is cognisant of the political dimensions of this work, particularly power dynamics and representation. This makes representation an essential aspect of a justice project. Without adequate representation, it is difficult to make claims for more just policies. 

Community engagement requires adequate resourcing. 

Equipping teachers with community knowledge and awareness requires strong partnership models within initial teacher education. One initiative that aims to prepare community-engaged pre-service teachers is La Trobe University’s NEXUS program. 

Bernadette Walker-Gibbs and Steve Murphy, from La Trobe School of Education, work at the cutting edge of  innovative university-school partnership frameworks that focus on capacity building for community-engagement among pre-service teachers. 

It should be noted though that building community engagement is a resource-intensive undertaking. To foster strong university-school partnerships, funding is needed to enable meaningful – rather than tokenistic – approaches to engagement and co-design.

Community engagement tackles deficit assumptions.

Tokenistic engagement can result in deficit views and lowered expectations. There is also a tension between recognising differences and deficit assumptions. This is called ‘the dilemma of difference’, which arises from concerns about effectively addressing differences without stigmatising individuals whose differences have been brought to light. Kitty te Riele from the University of Tasmania’s Peter Underwood Centre tackled these issues head-on, offering insights from working with disenfranchised youth.

Challenging the prevailing myth of low educational aspirations needs us to re-evaluate pre-conceived notions and explore the true aspirations of young people and their families. This requires a shift in perspective that embraces the diverse aspirations of young people in the context of social and material disadvantage against convenient myths and stereotypes.

Community engagement starts from those problems that matter.  

At the heart of community engagement lies the crucial task of tackling the issues that hold significance for marginalised individuals and communities. 

Lew Zipin and Marie Brennan from the University of South Australia shed light on the vital role of addressing real-world problems in education. This requires an inclusive approach to co-design that effectively incorporates local knowledge. 

Bridging the gap between educational institutions and the realities of marginalised young people requires recognising students as proactive mediators between life-based and school-based knowledge. Such recognition has transformative potential, leading to a contextualised, community-aware approach to teaching and learning.

Community engagement can ensure quality.

In recent education reforms, the discourse surrounding quality education has shifted towards a human capital perspective.

Sue Grieshaber and Elise Hunkin from La Trobe’s School of Education examined the nexus of quality and equity in early childhood education, highlighting concerns about the potential ramifications of market-driven approaches to education on equity.

There is an urgent need to broaden our definition of quality education beyond market values to incorporate relationships with families and communities.  

Overall, these insights from the workshop highlight the importance of co-design, teacher preparation, dispelling myths, curriculum design, and re-framing what is meant by ‘quality’. It showed how genuine community engagement for equity and social justice address power relations, challenge deficit narratives, and incorporate community voices. 

Australia is approaching another historical moment in its relationship with its Indigenous peoples, a moment that will shape the moral sentiment of the nation for decades to come. In the lead up to the referendum, our discussions about community engagement was a timely reminder of the power of voice as a vehicle for impactful participation in the decisions that matter and that affect the most disenfranchised. 

Babak Dadvand is a senior lecturer in Pedagogy, Professional Practice and Teacher Education at La Trobe School of Education. Babak’s research is in areas of teaching and teacher education with a focus on issues of equity, diversity and inclusion in relation to teachers’ work and student experiences. Babak’s current research is focused on the challenges that teachers face and the types of support that they need stay in the profession, especially in the more challenging working conditions of schools that serve communities that are socially-historically marginalised. Twitter: @DadvandBabak

Jo Lampert is Professor of Teacher Education for Social Transformation at Monash University. She has led alternative pathways into teaching in hard-to-staff schools for over 15 years, most recently as Director of the Commonwealth and State supported Nexus M. Teach in Victoria, a social justice, employment-based pathway whereby preservice teachers work as Education Support Staff prior to gaining employment as paraprofessionals (Nexus). She tweets at @jolampert