What is NAPLAN costing us?

In April 2015, Justin Coulson vented his frustration about NAPLAN in the Daily Telegraph, with the headline, ‘Just admit it. NAPLAN is a complete failure.’ Coulson conservatively estimated this so called failure costs the tax payer $100 million a year.

I agree NAPLAN is expensive but I don’t agree it’s a failure. We have debated NAPLAN since before it began so I won’t try to persuade you, or Coulson for that matter, of its merits. I do however want to discuss potential hidden costs of NAPLAN, costs that can’t be quantified. These costs relate to what NAPLAN does not assess.

As Australian educators know, NAPLAN assesses persuasive and narrative writing. (It’s always a surprise as to which will be assessed, although for a time persuasive kept coming up!)

Why is narrative and persuasive writing assessed? Because the administration of the assessment can be standardised. A prompt is given and the students have a short period to craft their response.

What writing skills do students need if they are to progress in secondary schools? Narrative and persuasive writing is important for success at secondary school, but perhaps expository writing (writing that explains, informs or describes) is the most called upon writing in secondary education.

Why is expository writing not assessed in NAPLAN? Because it’s almost impossible to standardise the assessment of it.

What is the cost to us for not including expository writing within our accountability measures? I guess we will never know, but I would like to share with you a case study that certainly made me think the costs could be high.

The study looks at information report writing and in case you haven’t stopped to think about this type of writing recently, here’s a quick overview of the skills needed to write an information report.

1.     Reading skills: Students need to be able to identify main ideas, categorise and synthesise information, interpret subject-specific and technical language and infer from tables and diagrams.

2.     Note-taking skills: They need to be able to paraphrase and summarise information, accurately record and organise information and reference their sources.

3.     Report writing skills: In addition to be able to spell, punctuate, paragraph and write sentences that are clear and easy to read, students need to use an appropriate tone, provide a general statement of introduction, use the present tense and third person, and categorise and organise their information.

The case study involves a year 6 class of students in a Perth government primary school. The teacher asked the students to write a report on the treatment of Chinese worker in the Australian Gold Rush. The students were given 5 websites to research the information. They had an hour to make notes but they could not copy anything verbatim. A week later they used the information to write their reports.

What did the teacher find out?

·        The majority of the students did not follow the format of an information report.

·        They organised information into paragraphs with only 1 or 2 supporting details.

·        Few students used sub-headings.

·        Few students used formal language.

·        Direct quotes were used without referencing.

·        Students' note taking skills were poor.

·        Graphics were ignored or incorrectly interpreted.

The teacher spent the next seven weeks of her literacy lessons, teaching the students how to research and write reports. She assessed them again, this time asking them to write a report on the Eureka Stockade.

There was huge improvement in their writing. This growth is evident in the effect size, the pre - and post-test distributions and it’s clearly evident in the students’ writing itself. I would imagine the secondary teachers who inherit these students will be very grateful. This group of 28 students is ready for the demands of secondary school writing.

The teacher in the case study is an experienced and dedicated teacher with considerable expertise. The pressures on her to ensure her students achieve in NAPLAN meant a focus on teaching narrative and persuasive writing and she had not realised how poor her students’ report writing skills were.

This study involves one teacher and one class so we need to interpret the findings cautiously. It however got me thinking.

·        Is the lack of attention to expository writing being replicated in primary schools across the country?

·        If so, what is this costing us?

Acknowledgements: Tricia Simons and Bronwyn Jones