NAPLAN narratives: literacy teachers' perceptions of the impact of testing in schools

Abstract

The National Assessment Program, Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN)'s impact on education is extensive but not yet well understood. Using a narrative inquiry approach, this study explored how teachers responsible for preparing students for NAPLAN think about NAPLAN literacy test and how they use NAPLAN literacy data. In narrative inquiry, researcher enters the midst of participants' worlds and explores their stories of experience, seeking to uncover stories lived and told (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p. 20). The researcher is then able to retell these stories in form of narratives written according to their interpretation of themes. The study was located in a government secondary school; principal and three English teachers were interviewed. The teachers were invited to construct a memory box of their professional experience which was 'unpacked' in interviews. In this way, I gained insights and access to 'hidden' stories of what teachers considered important in their teaching of English. My research questions were formed to explore way NAPLAN was influencing teachers' professional lives and, more broadly, to understand impact of standardised testing (NAPLAN) in schools. I then constructed themed narratives in response to memory box and interview data, incorporating teachers' perceptions of literacy, standardise~ testing and NAPLAN. This study confirmed view that teachers and principal considered NAPLAN a high stakes test. NAPLAN's presence in school created a culture of 'teaching to test' which affected school curriculum choices. NAPLAN was perceived to be establishing an educational discourse of accountability, at odds with some of teachers' conceptions of literacy. It resulted in teachers adopting classroom behaviours inconsistent with their privately held beliefs. Similarly NAPLAN promoted a culture of test performance which valued isolated literacy skills demonstrated on externally generated, quantitative standardised assessment over a literacy culture which valued individualism, creativity, student-teacher relationships and context. In this study, stress on staff and students was observed as a result of cultural shift towards high stakes testing. While this study represents only a snapshot of teachers' perspectives, it seems timely for educators and community to consider kind of literacy culture it might be desirable to promote in schools and whether NAPLAN in its current form contributes to that culture or, perhaps, undermines it.