Australian Education Council Research Articles

NAPLAN data on writing: A picture of accelerating negative change

This paper looks to the past, to the watershed of Australia’s first National Literacy Plan (Australian Education Council, 1994) and National Numeracy Plan (Australian Education Council, 1994); to the present (reported National Assessment Program–Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) data and evidence about literacy gains), and forward, to possible futures for young people’s literacy education and the prospective experience of literacy testing in Australia. The discussion situates NAPLAN in its historical context, recognising how it emerged from different approaches to state based testing of literacy and numeracy. Against this background we examine the 2015 NAPLAN writing data to reveal increasing numbers of students who are achieving below the national minimum standard in the domain of writing. Finally we call for a sharpened focus on writing standards as benchmarks in NAPLAN and how these relate to achievement standards in the Australian Curriculum. We also argue for an increased emphasis on teachers’ criterial knowledge, essential for the teaching and assessment of writing. Such moves would go some way to realising the potential of NAPLAN for evidence informed policy for achieving real educational improvement.

A longitudinal study of student understanding of chance and data

This study uses Partial Credit Rasch analysis to study a complex data set of student responses to survey items relating to chance and data. The items were administered in the classroom and collected from 1993 to 2003 in the Australian state of Tasmania. Data were collected from a total of 5514 individual students across Grades 3 to 11 over the decade and of these students 896 provided at least one repeated measure. As students completed a core of common items, Rasch analysis could be performed and all students were subsequently placed on the same logit scale for comparison. The purpose of the analysis is to consider average cohort change over time and trends in performance during the first 10 years after the curriculum was introduced in Tasmania. Implications for the education system and curriculum implementation are considered. The topics Chance and Data were officially introduced into the mathematics curriculum in the Australian state of Tasmania in 1993 in the Mathematics Guidelines K-8 (Department of Education and the Arts, 1993). This followed their introduction in the United States by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM, 1989) and in Australia in A National Statement on Mathematics for Australian Schools (Australian Education Council [AEC], 1991). From 1993 a series of projects followed cohorts of Tasmanian school students over the next decade, identifying understanding, and using surveys that were classroom-administered tests, which students were told were not associated with their school assessment but for research only. The purposes of the research included constructing models for the development of understanding of chance and data concepts. The survey data collected throughout the projects also allowed the comparison of cohorts across the first decade following the implementation of the Chance and Data curriculum in Tasmania. The comparison gave an indication of the success of the curriculum in increasing student understanding of the topics.

Negotiating values for the science curriculum: The need for dialogue and compromise

Recently, a Curriculum Framework has been developed and mandated for implementation in all school systems— government, Catholic and independent— in Western Australia (WA). A statement of core shared values is a significant part of the Framework. The curriculum is divided into eight learning area statements, science being one of these. The Science Learning Area Statement, with its roots in the Australian Education Council (1994) statement on science, includes a definition of science and a rationale for teaching it in schools; major outcome statements concerned with working scientifically and developing conceptual understandings; principles for science learning, teaching and assessment; and sections about science as it relates to different phases of schooling, and how science can be integrated into other areas of the curriculum. Thirty two core shared values have been espoused as integral to the Cirriculum Framework. These values have been clustered into five main statements: a pursuit of knowledge and a commitment to achievement of potential; self acceptance and respect for self; respect and concern for others and their rights; social and civic responsibility; and environmental responsibility. One of the main tasks for us as writers of the Science Learning Area Statement was to explicate the core shared values into a description of the science curriculum. This article documents, from our point of view, the process by which a mandated set of core shared values were incorporated into a statement describing the curriculum in the science learning area. The process was under the direction of a Science Learning Area Committee. At several points, conflict, or potential conflict, about the interpretation of the core shared values in relation to science in the classroom was resolved by negotiation amongst ourselves in the first instance, the Science Learning Area Committee, and the Values Consultative Group. While the central narrative in this paper is about our journey through the process, there are the antecedent themes relating to how and why the core shared values were developed and subsequently mandated. The arising tensions, as yet unexplored, relate to how, or even whether, the values might be explicated in science classrooms. In reflecting on these tensions, we provide a re-analysis of some of the issues in school science, which of course are not new. We believe that science as taught in classrooms cannot be value-free, even when teachers believe otherwise.

Federal/State Mediations in the Australian National Education Agenda: From the AEC to MCEETYA 1987–1993

Drawing on research interviews and relevant document analysis, this paper analyses the changing forms of the national education agenda as it was developed and modifed in the Australian Education Council from 1987 to 1993. Particular attention is given to four significant developments in this period: national curriculum statements and profiles in schooling, and Mayer competencies; the training reform agenda; higher education; and the National Strategy for Equity in Schools. The study is located against general developments in Australian federalism and the changing political complexion of State governments across the period which led to the creation of the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs.

Post Secondary School Educational and Vocational Issues Facing Families in Rural North Queensland

Vocational choice has been a critical issue for rural Queensland families for many years although it remains a little documented aspect of the lives of secondary school students and their parents who live in the outback. While rural education has received official recognition as an area of disadvantage in the Australian education system for almost two decades (Schools Commission, 1975; Commission of Inquiry into Poverty in Australia, 1976) vocational choice in outback schools, which is central to the relationships between both school and work and school and tertiary education, has not been prominent in the research literature in spite of several recent reports (Boomer, 1988; Australian Education Council Review Committee, 1991; National Board of Employment, Education and Training, 1991). This research project has been designed to investigate the processes of post secondary school education and vocational choices for families in a representative community and to consider the implications of this issue for schools and policy makers. The research project was initiated by Dr David McSwan of James Cook University's Rural Education Research and Development Centre and Dr Ken Stevens of the Faculty of Education at Victoria University in Wellington in New Zealand. Specifically, the research will investigate how families with year ten, eleven and twelve students in a selected North Queensland community make choices about post secondary school education and careers.

Conditional Probability: Its Place in the Mathematics Curriculum

The increased attention given to probability and statistics in the NCTM's Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics (1989) and other national curriculum statements around the world (e.g., Department of Education and Science [DES] 1991; Australian Education Council [AEC] 1991) has been applauded by most mathematics educators and many teachers. When they leave school, students need to make decisions when presented with claims about data. The fact that these challenges will arise is illustrated every day in reports in newspapers, magazines, and television news broadcasts.

Assessing the Interpersonal Communication Competence of Vocational Teachers: contemporary issues and dilemmas

Abstract In recent months, certain major policy documents have highlighted the importance of facilitating the development of interpersonal communication competence in vocational teachers. These documents include the provocative Australian Education Council Review Committee Report (Finn Report) which lists interpersonal and personal development as one of six key competency areas. As new vocational teacher education courses like the Bachelor of Teaching are beginning to be developed on a national scale within Australia, it is appropriate to cater for the development of interpersonal communication competence in vocational teacher education curricula. Among the more vexatious questions which need to be addressed is the determination of whether vocational teachers can demonstrate interpersonal communication competence, particularly in relation to their professional roles. This paper examines current scientific literature on communication competence. Since competence implies more than skill alone, consideration...

Fundamentalist Education and Creation Science

It is argued that creation science education, because of its conservatism, has become accepted as a quiet presence in Australian education. The authors demonstrate, via an examination of the social studies and science components of a creation science education program, how these programs are at odds with widely accepted views on education in Australia and do not comply with requirements for registration of non-government schools, as set out by the Australian Education Council. Moreover the wider issue of creation science has been pushed aside as ‘too hard’ by Australian educators. It is argued that there is evidence to question seriously this narrow fundamentalist education operating in some Australian schools.

Seeing is Believing

Veritable libraries of career information appear on shelves each year. Well-intentioned influencers, particularly parents and teachers, make use of this material as do career information seekers themselves. Decisions are made on the content, yet the industry of Career Information still remains highly deregulated. Any person/organisation with any motive can produce quite influential career information. The Department of Employment Education and Training (DEET) is one of the largest agencies responsible for provision of career information. It is the major Australian provider of national and local occupational information data and products with an overall expenditure of approximately $15 million per annum (DEET, 1991). It was afforded an opportunity during the deliberations of an Australian Education Council Working Party on Career Education (McCowan, 1992) to take the first step in the development of standards for career information. This article explores these issues, as well as presenting a checklist of standards for career information providers.

International Update: a National Australian Statement on Mathematics

A National Statement on Mathematics for Australian Schools (Australian Education Council and the Curriculum Corporation 1991) wa released in July 1991. This document is the result of a collaborative project whose recommendations are to be implemented by the State and Territory Government education systems in Australia. It does not prescribe a panicularcurriculum but supplies a framework around which system and schools in the proces of planning can structure their mathematic curriculum.

Early childhood teacher education in Australia

The nature and form of early childhood courses in Australia varies from State to State but certain characteristics prevail and assist in illustrating the present condition of early childhood teacher education in this country. However, recently proposed changes to teacher education #opK‐12#cp, as set out by the Australian Education Council #op1990#cp, would bring about a new style of preparation for early childhood teachers in Australia. This new direction is being questioned by early childhood teacher educators and alternative plans for modification of course structures are being generated. The present study collated details of accredited undergraduate early childhood courses throughout Australia, highlighted State characteristics and proposed areas for change and issues for further debate, particularly in the face of a national movement of reform in teacher education in Australia.

Corporate federalism and the reform of teacher education in Australia

Since 1983, the Hawke Labor government has been engaged in a process of national restructuring of the private and public sector. In Australia, however, it has not always been recognized that education, including teacher education is an industry, is expected to contribute to this national reconstruction, and is itself currently undergoing a restructuring which is revolutionary in extent and effect. With the Green and White Papers on higher education (Dawkins 1987, 1988), the Commonwealth Government effectively established a unified national system of higher education. The Australian Education Council (AEC) comprised the Federal and State Ministers of Education subsequently established a working party to produce a Green Paper, Teacher Education in Australia: Report to the Australian Education Council, (February, 1990) (hereafter referred to as the report) and a supplementary document.

School-Based Teacher Education

Pre-service teacher education can and should integrate learning about teaching through continuous school-based experience. It is in the dynamic environments of schools and classrooms that prospective teachers learn through observation, experience and reflection to make critical judgements, in real and changing circumstances, about what it means to teach. Moreover, it is through continuous school-based teachIng experience, in a variety of school contexts, that prospective teachers construct their own critical consciousness of the social purposes of schooling and not just the technical skills of teaching. An upheaval in teacher education in Australia is currently foreshadowed by the Australian Education Council (AEC) draft report "Education in Australia.' The report proposes a three year initial degree followed by a two year part-time appointment in a school as an "associate" teacher, concurrent with two years part-time study leadIng to a Bachelor. of Education. As a means of modifying their programmes and / or considering alternatives proposed by outside bodies, all tertiary institutions offering teacher education programmes should confront the challenge of justifying the ideology on which their programmes are based. This paper describes the development of a teacher education programme and the model of integrated teacher educatIon on which it is based. The aim of the paper is to highlight the underlying principles of Interaction and learning that have emerged, as well as the distinctive features of the programme which illustrate these prInciples In practIce. The paper concludes by identifying further research questions relevant to the continuing development of the programme and to the teacher education model.

Book Review: A History of the Australian Education Council 1936–1986

Book Review: A History of the Australian Education Council 1936–1986

BOOK NOTES

Books Reviewed in this article:EZRA N. SULEIMAN (ed.), Parliaments and Parliamentarians in Democratic PoliticsRONALD MENDELSOHN (ed.), Finance of Old AgeJOHN DIXON and HYUNG SHIK KIM (eds), Social Welfare in AsiaRUDOLF KLEIN and MICHAEL O'HIGGINS (eds.). The Future of WelfareGEORGE JONES and JOHN STEWART, The Case for Local GovernmentANDREW SPAULL, A History of the Australian Education Council

Education and Technology by Task Force on Education and Technology (Australian Education Council, Melbourne, 1985), pp. 79

(1988). Education and Technology by Task Force on Education and Technology (Australian Education Council, Melbourne, 1985), pp. 79. Prometheus: Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 434-435.

The Australian Children's Television Foundation

At a meeting of the Australian Education Council in Hobart on February 19, 1981, the Ministers for Education representing the Federal and State Governments, resolved to support the establishment of an Australian Children's Television Foundation. The Foundation's major function is envisaged as encouraging the development, production and transmission of children's television programs of quality. This organization would not duplicate existing facilities, but work through existing production houses and producers, supplying finance for worthwhile projects that are brought to it as well as commissioning the making of projects it has initiated. Following consultation with State and Government Ministers, a Steering Committee has been established with a view to the creation of the Foundation.