SUBMISSION

Senate Inquiry into the Effectiveness of the

National Assessment Program - Literacy and
Numeracy (NAPLAN)

For the Senate Education, Employment and Workplace

Relations Committees

Submission prepared by
The Whitlam Institute within the University of Western
Sydney
&
Nicky Dulfer, Prof. John Polesel and Dr Suzanne Rice
from University of Melbournes Graduate School of
Education
5 June 2013

Introduction
The Whitlam Institute within the University of Western Sydney and the University of
Melbournes Graduate School of Education welcome the opportunity to contribute to the
Inquiry into the Effectiveness of the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy
(NAPLAN). The Whitlam Institute commemorates the life and work of the Hon Gough
Whitlam AC QC and pursues the causes he championed. It is a dynamic public policy
institute fostering the development of positive and meaningful community change through
research, scholarship, inquiry and debate. With a strong interest in educational reform, we
seek a more equitable schooling system that builds and realises the potential of all young
Australians to become confident and creative learners, and importantly active and informed
citizens.
The Whitlam Institute, along with our project partners, the Melbourne Graduate School of
Education and the Foundation for Young Australians, has responded to a growing
polarisation of NAPLAN proponents and critics (in part fed by media reporting) as the highstakes testing regime becomes embedded in the educational landscape through our latest
project, The Experience of Education: The Impact of High Stakes Testing on School Students
and their Families. This is a significant, longer-term research project which examines the
impacts of high stakes testing (such as NAPLAN) on school students and their families.
We are currently in the second phase of this project which seeks to examine the questions
concerning the high stakes testing regime within the context of the purposes of education,
and the best interests of the children, as they are defined in the Melbourne Declaration on
Educational Goals for Young Australians and relevant policy commitments. In part this is
because it is a piece of strategic research that goes to the heart of the question of the
purposes of education. Education policy and debate have become increasingly functionalist
and utilitarian, concentrating on skills, employability, and workforce preparedness judged
against a narrow set of measures. Of course, equipping young people to be active
participants in the economy is a critical educational objective and rightly so.
Here at the Whitlam Institute, we acknowledge the need and importance for assessment
and diagnostics. However, education is and should be much more. While policy and
legislation speaks about the best interests of the child and quality education, our research
tackles that question directly by examining a centrepiece of the contemporary educational
landscape. It does so by intentionally looking at standardised external testing not in terms of
educational performance but in terms of the impact benefits or otherwise on young
people themselves and their families and on their school environment.
The aim of this project is to enable better informed policy making regarding the Australian
high-stakes testing regime of NAPLAN throughout the school years from the perspective of
what is in the best interests of the child. The objectives are:
1. To determine what the impacts are, both positive and negative, of high stakes
testing on students in terms of their health, well-being, student behaviours such as
absenteeism, access to education, school use of time, the curriculum, and teaching
and learning.

2. To examine the significance of the identified impacts for students and their
learning environment.
This is a highly strategic project that explicitly seeks to have a direct impact on the health
and well-being of school-aged children and upon their school environment. Its significance
lies in its specific focus on the students themselves as the basis for examining a major
educational reform and its implications. It adopts the 'best interests of the child' as the
principal criterion and, in doing so, it seeks to provide a distinctive approach to public
discourse on the purposes of education, backed by substantial original research.
Background to the Project
Introduced in 2008 in line with the Federal Governments commitment to strengthening
school accountability, NAPLAN tests are conducted nationally and annually in Years 3, 5, 7
and 9. Testing reading, writing, language conventions and numeracy skills and knowledge,
the program was introduced as an assessment tool within the broader Education
Revolution to address the academic gap emerging between students and the inequities
evident in divergent outcomes between schools. The aim of the initiative, according to the
Australian Curriculum Assessment & Reporting Authority (ACARA), has been to provide a
measure (a) of how individual students are performing at the time of the tests, (b) of
whether or not young people are meeting literacy and numeracy benchmarks, and (c) of
how educational programs are working. It is intended to be used by parents and school staff
to identify strengths and areas of improvement for students. The information should also be
used in the development of student learning programs to support the learning needs of
these students including the extension of high achieving students.
There has been a substantial increase in the emphasis placed on national testing since the
establishment of NAPLAN and it appears to have assumed a disproportionate influence on
schooling. The NAPLAN testing program, and its reporting via the MySchool website, has
generated a great deal of debate about its efficacy and legitimacy as a measure of
comparative school standards and about the confidence that can be placed in the tests
themselves. The 2011 Gonski report notes that the development of a school resourcing
standard and loadings for funding frameworks relies heavily on NAPLAN data (Gonski 2011:
157). The authors, however, warn of the dangers of relying on such data in a move away
from a much broader and more holistic sense of the goals of education:
It is important that accountability for the expenditure of funds in schools does not
solely rely on the evidence and data that are provided by external tests such as
NAPLAN. While literacy and numeracy are core elements of the curriculum, other
broader schooling outcomes can be strong indicators of school improvement and the
quality of education (Gonski 2011: 221).
Professor Barry McGaw, Chair of the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting
Authority (ACARA), argues that learning depends on building these fundamental skills and
that NAPLAN lets teachers and parents see each students performance from a national

perspective,1 informing parental choice and improving the quality of teaching. The launch
of the My School website has made it easy to find statistics about schools NAPLAN results,
enrolments and overall performance according to the tests. While, on one hand, there is
recognition that NAPLAN and the MySchool website inform parental choice, enable teachers
and parents to contextualize each students performance nationally, provide ready
statistical answers, and have the potential to improve teaching standards, on the other
there is strong concern that the information lends itself to manipulation (through league
tables) and that accountability fears are creating test-driven schooling.
Criticism has been forthcoming across the educational spectrum. Associate Professor at the
University of Canberra, Dr Thomas William Nielsen laments what he sees as an adoption of
an already failed US-UK model, centered around individualism, narrow academic
achievement, and a rationalistic-economic view to life that is completely self-destructive in
the long run.2 Professor Brian Caldwell, a former dean of education at the University of
Melbourne, told a Senate inquiry into NAPLAN in 2010 that the program, and controversial
My School website, should be phased out. Others, like Dr Kevin Donnelly of the
Melbourne-based Education Standards Institute have been more direct, criticising the
model as counter-productive and educationally unsound.3
Education expert and statistician Margaret Wu has described using NAPLAN results for
measuring school performance as flawed, unreliable and unsuitable for high-risk
accountability.4 Psychologist Dr James Athanasou similarly expresses his concerns: The
problem is not the tests assessment, but how it is used. 5 Professor Linda DarlingHammond, educator and noted social scientist at Stanford University, has also been critical
of the path NAPLAN is taking towards high stakes testing. At a seminar organised by the
Australian Education Union, the Australian College of Educators and Sydney University in
2012, she warned that Australia should be moving away from what has been educationally
counterproductive in America (see Polesel et al. 2012). Others question the uses of NAPLAN
results where the ability to locate statistical and contextual information about schools lends
itself to ready manipulation in the creation of league tables in spite of the explicit policy
intent to avoid simplistic rankings. The fear amongst some has been that the broader
context for implementing NAPLAN has been lost in league tables and test-driven schooling,
and its outcomes have become significant accountability indicators for schools in Australia
by default. Indeed, despite the availability of more information on schools including on My

Barry McGaw, 7 May 2012, NAPLAN: The Case For, The Age,
http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/naplan-the-case-for-20120504-1y431.html,
[accessed 29 May 2013].
2
Thomas William Nielsen, 5 May 2013, Out From the Cave: Have we Lost the Purpose of Education? The
Conversation, http://theconversation.com/out-from-the-cave-have-we-lost-the-purpose-of-education-12374,
[accessed 29 May 2013]
3
Kevin Donnelly, 10 May 2010, NAPLAN denies kids an education revolution, The Drum Opinion,
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/34006.html, [accessed 30 May 2013].
4
Margaret Wu, 2011, Inadequacies of NAPLAN results for measuring school performance, Submission to
NAPLAN Senate Inquiry, https://senate.aph.gov.au/submissions/comittees/viewdocument.aspx?id=dab4b1dcd4a7-47a6-bfc8-77c89c5e9f74, [accessed 30 May 2013].
5
James Athanasou, 13 My 2013, NAPLAN is fine but the way we use it is broken, Sydney Morning Herald,
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/naplan-is-fine-but-the-way-we-use-it-is-broken-20130512-2jfzl.html,
[accessed 30 May 2013].

School the picture on any particular school remains incomplete in several key aspects
thereby defying easy comparisons.
The Project
Our research to date has been particularly strong in establishing the impacts on students
with respect to their learning environment as a consequence of the effects, for example, on
teaching practices and the curriculum. The first phase of this project has delivered two
major pieces of research, both carried out by the Melbourne Graduate School of Education
at the University of Melbourne.
1. The Experience of Education: The Impacts of High Stakes Testing on Schools,
Students and their Families Literature Review (Jan 2012)
Released in January 2012, a review of international and Australian literature was conducted
to provide the necessary context for the project and to assist in the development of the
related quantitative research instruments. The review found that in Australia there has been
little debate, and a lack of research on the fundamental question of the impact NAPLAN
might have on the wellbeing of students and their family circumstances. Turning to the
international research, it also established a consistent picture of serious concerns about the
impact high-stakes testing regimes have on student health and well-being, learning,
teaching and the curriculum.
2. The Experience of Education: The Impacts of High Stakes Testing on Schools,
Students and their Families An Educators Perspective (Nov 2012)
This report suggests that the NAPLAN testing regime is plagued by unintended
consequences well beyond its stated intent: it does represent a shift to high stakes testing.
Seeking the view of educators the findings not only confirmed those trends identified in
research conducted in the USA and the UK, but also provided substantial evidence on the
impacts NAPLAN is having on the Australian curriculum, pedagogy, staff morale, schools
capacity to attract and retain staff and students and more importantly students health and
well-being.
The methodology used an online survey instrument and attracted a remarkable 8,300
respondents from educators nation-wide. In the study teachers reported unintended
NAPLAN consequences that included:
-

narrowing of teaching strategies and of the curriculum

negative impacts on student health and wellbeing
negative impacts on staff morale, and
negative impacts on school reputation and capacity to attract and retain students
and staff.

Lead researcher Nicky Dulfer said NAPLAN is limiting childrens exposure to non-tested
areas: We are narrowing the curriculum in order to test children, she said. Our findings
show that concerns NAPLAN might be leading to more teaching to the test are justified.
Over half of teachers surveyed reported that NAPLAN impacts the style and content of their
5

teaching, with just over two thirds reporting it has led to a timetable reduction for other
subjects in their schools.
Educators also reported that NAPLAN is having a negative impact on student well-being.
Almost ninety percent of teachers reported students talking about feeling stressed prior to
NAPLAN testing, and significant numbers also reported students being sick, crying or having
sleepless nights.
The report was met with an avalanche of media and public attention nationwide and has
been subject to significant scrutiny: the rigour and validity of the work has stood up to this
very soundly indeed.
Phase Two of the project is underway. This is a challenging phase of the project and the
research employs a multidisciplinary approach in order to examine these questions fully. It
includes quantitative research comprising of a parent survey conducted by the polling
agency Newspoll. This survey aims to canvass Australian parents views of NAPLAN and the
degree of consistency or otherwise with the findings in the survey of educators.
Phase Two of the project will also include critical qualitative research with teachers, parents
and students by lead social researcher Professor Johanna Wyn, Director of the Youth
Research Centre at the University of Melbourne. Drawing from the literature review, the
teacher survey and the Newspoll results this last report seeks to bring all of our research
together and highlight the impacts NAPLAN is having on students in terms of their health,
well-being, student behaviours such as absenteeism, access to education, school use of
time, the curriculum, and teaching and learning. We expect to see the release of this
research in November 2013. The final phase has deep roots and is expected to generate
further discussion and debate.
For the Whitlam Institute, Phase One of the project challenges us to reconsider the NAPLAN
testing regime within the broader context of the purposes of education, and importantly,
through the lens of the educator.
We would argue that NAPLAN has become the default measure for very significant policy
purposes and as such is bearing a weight much greater than would or should be expected of
what is said to be a simple tool for diagnostic purposes. The most obvious manifestation of
this is that NAPLAN has been formally incorporated as the key measure with National
Education and Reform Agreement (2013).
In that agreement NAPLAN is specified as a performance indicator for the following
outcomes:

All children are engaged in and benefiting from schooling

Halve the gap for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in reading, writing
and numeracy by 2018

More fundamentally, NAPLAN is a key indicator in the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS),
which determines the Commonwealths calculation of recurrent funding for schooling:
This is calculated on a standard of school effectiveness and efficiency
based on schools that meet a demanding student outcome benchmark
6

at a lower than average cost. Reference schools are those where at

least 80 per cent of the students exceed the national minimum standard
in reading and numeracy under NAPLAN across three years (COAG
2013: 27).
In this light it is difficult to sustain an argument that the stakes associated with NAPLAN
results are anything other than very high indeed.
As the NAPLAN results become linked with funding and policy decisions, pressure for
improving scores has vastly impacted on teachers, their practices and the curriculum.
Educators are increasingly speaking out of the associated work pressures, higher workloads,
narrowing pedagogy and diminishing time for quality teaching and learning. While for many
schools NAPLAN acts only as a minor distraction from their regular teaching program,
reports of teaching to the test are clearly well-founded, as practising programs come to
dominate the curriculum to the neglect of rich and important areas such as history,
geography, physical education and music.
Though further work is required, it is evident that the dramatic shift towards performance
that NAPLAN has come to represent is having an impact on students, both in terms of their
educational experience and, for a significant number, their personal well-being.
Conclusion
The Whitlam Institute, with its partners at the University of Melbourne, holds strong
concerns for the high stakes nature of the NAPLAN testing regime. In the now famous
Gonski report, the authors note:
An excessive focus on what is testable, measurable and publicly reportable carries
the risk of an imbalance in the school curriculum. Independence, confidence,
initiative and teamwork are learned as much through elements of the curriculum
that are not readily measured by an external test as through those areas in which
outcomes can be readily tested and reported (Gonski 2011: 217).
Our education project questions whether the focus on NAPLAN is counterproductive to
these crucial learning goals. While literacy and numeracy skills are fundamental and build a
strong foundation for further learning, we believe that educational reform should place an
emphasis on fostering much broader learning goals and outcomes.
Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this important inquiry. We have enclosed a
copy of each of our reports for your interest.

References
COAG (2013). National Education Reform Agreement, Council of Australian Governments.
Dulfer, N., Polesel, J. & Rice, S. (2012). The Experience of Education: The Impacts of High
Stakes Testing on School Students and Their Families - An Educator's Perspective. Sydney,
The Whitlam Institute.
Gonski, D. (2011). Review of Funding for Schooling: Final Report. Canberra, Department of
Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.
Polesel, J., Dulfer, N. & Turnbull, M. (2012). The Experience of Education: The Impacts of
High Stakes Testing on School Students and Their Families - Literature Review. Sydney, The
Whitlam Institute.