What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Naplan Testing?

Introduction

The NAPLAN (National Assessment Plan-Literacy and Numeracy) test has been considered the subject of controversy since it was introduced first by the government in the year 2008. The testing of literacy and numeracy has been done at the territory and state levels since the year 1990. However, following the agreement between state, territory, Government, and federal, this state has been introduced due to the reason that Australia has standardized National testing. The NAPLAN test is being administered by ACARA (AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM ASSESSMENT AND REPORTING AUTHORITY) (Chua et al., 2017). The great factor of the NAPLAN test is that each and every domain is scored on a single scale. The achievement can be compared easily across various levels of the school year cursive common progression of learning for every level of the NAPLAN test. The result of this test has been found to enhance significantly in some of the areas since it was introduced and the internet training has been found positive with the exception of the writing skills. This paper aims to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the NAPLAN test. The paper includes a short introduction. Then the paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of this test along with various other aspects. Lastly, the main findings of the paper have been concluded briefly.

Benefits of Naplan testing

In the financial year 2015-16, approximately 55.7 billion dollars of taxpayer money was spent on the recurrent funding for the schools of which 42.4 billion dollars have been spent on the system of government schools. The federal and state governments have been responsible for making sure that this money is spent in a better manner (Davies, 2012). The main focus of the central and state governments is to benefit the teachers, the school system, and mostly students. The NAPLAN test has been found to be very effective in benefiting the overall system of schools which includes parents, teachers, and students. This taste is considered the tool to enhance teaching and schools. Assessment is considered an important part of schooling. It generally serves various functions but among the students, assessments mainly offer data that have the ability to enable the improvement of students (Jackson, 2022). Assessments that are administered and written on an individual teacher or school level are considered beneficial, however, they are not comparable across the classes and schools and they do not offer any objective benchmark against the level of progress of the student. Hence standardised assessments are very important. Naplan as the standardized assessment basically serves the function of a diagnostic tool for the overall system of school full stop it also enables a recognition of issues within the education system that exist over time and it means for assessing the potential solutions. The results of the NAPLAN test are objective but it is a standardized data which helps to enhance numeric and literacy on various levels. It is administered every year for these students. NAPLAN is considered the measurement tool for evaluating the progress of students over time (Roberts et al., 2019). This also permits evaluation of the efficiency of different parts of the entire system of schools in all manners from the practices of teachers up to policy interventions of the federal government. For example, the data of the Nepal test is used regularly in order to recognize best practices that have led to substantial gains of students in numeracy and literacy, informing practices of the other schools.

The results of NAPLAN are generally made transparent as they are published on aggregate state, territory, and national levels. This also ensures that transparency regarding the results of numeracy and literacy is there. For example, when a certain state is underperforming, this is made transparent so that every person in Australia has the same knowledge. The website which is used for schools in Australia shows results at the school level. The transparency factor of the NAPLAN test empowers parents to make important decisions regarding the education of their child and it also ensures that the assessments which are based on schools present a proper picture of the performance consistent of students with national standards. For example, when individual schools are not performing well up to the mask, all of the parents hold the right to access the information (Rogers et al., 2016). An alternative approach for collecting data however then withholding information from public food means that a small individual group in positions of influence have access to data while the vast majority of parents are being kept aware. Most of the parents then would have to depend on the gossip, school reputation, and guesswork in order to evaluate the academic performances of their schools. This will be considered unfair and will go against the basic governance principles of transparency with regard to the outcomes of policy.

All of the levels of government as well as systems of school maintain that numeracy and literacy skills are important. The result of the NAPLAN test ensures that the entire system of schools that is from the federal government to the individual school is being held accountable by the taxpayers and parents for their numeracy and literacy outcomes. Given that the significance of schooling is identified universally and the cost per year to the taxpayer of the system of school is 10 billion dollars. The state and federal governments must be held accountable, particularly for the outcome of their education policies (Swain et al., 2018). Similarly, it is significant to hold the Government schools accountable for their numeracy and literacy results, given financial investments have been made by taxpayers and parents. The NAPLAN test is for every person. ACARA mainly supports the concept of inclusive testing so that every student holds the opportunity to join in National Assessment Program. Adjustments are mainly available for students who are suffering from disability means who have diverse functional needs and abilities.

Limitations of Naplan testing

The Fallacy in relation to utilizing NAPLAN Data for identifying Giftedness

As NAPLAN is a standardized test of achievement, it strongly depends on acquired and taught skills and knowledge, indicating there are few chances for identification of underachieving students who are talented. When studies were carried out in relation to testing gifted students’ knowledge, out of six participants, five of them reported having below average results in school across numeracy and literacy of NAPLAN where students with learning disabilities got a significant impact. These outcomes highlight evidence of vital issues in the data of NAPLAN for recognizing talent or giftedness (Ford, 2013). Thereafter, it has been identified that underachievement performance is given by Australian students in both the OECD program and NAPLAN program considering testing of International Student Assessment or PISA (Guenther et al., 2013).

The key issue with underattainment is that these students do not have the ability to reach competencies that are of talent-level in characteristics if no evidence comes out that measures of NAPLAN testing are being applied for identification, students will miss opportunities for enabling talent development and growth. So, a vital concern regarding the utilization of NAPLAN is to identify underachieving students or those who are at major risk of it along with significantly recognizing students belonging to certain underserved populations such as marginalized backgrounds as either talented or gifted (Ronksley-Pavia, 2023). It is even highlighted from research that excellent students who come from poor financial or socio-cultural backgrounds have chances to make less progress overall as compared to low achievers obtained parents who are highlighted educated specifically between Grade 3 to Grade 9 as they have not elaborated what is defined by extraordinary students, the reasoning is about giftedness or potential.

The eloquence of poor outcomes associated with NAPLAN testing

According to Guenther (2013), an analysis is exemplified within NAPLAN data’s comparative presentation, which reflects the potential difference between outcomes for Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal students as well as their non-Aboriginal counterparts. The National Report of NAPLAN from the 2012 analysis of ACARA provides a comparison to average scores, particularly by geolocation and Indigenous state and status (Ronksley-Pavia, 2023). For instance, for the Persuasive Writing test of Year 3 within the Northern Territory, 337.5 has been found to be the average score mainly for Aboriginal students within provincial areas, while 171.1 was the average score within remote regions. On the other hand, for non-Aboriginal students, 392.8 and 393.8 were found to be respective outcomes. The data from the first outlook indicates Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal students are showcasing failure in relation to non-Aboriginal students (Guenther, 2013). Following that, it might be deduced that these students are failing in huge numbers within very remote regions.

The research has outlined the author's comment based on regimes of NAPLAN testing's validity and indicates that tests that obtain high stakes are considered dull assessment tools that specifically do no such important thing to maximizing school or student performance. Guenther (2013) also elaborated that when poor outcomes related to matter are spoken from the aspect of Ngaanyatjarra Lands, the process of social negotiation is carried out in knowledge instead of being individually obtained. The author considers if this is the scenario then NAPLAN cannot only be considered as a dull framework but it can also create false readings. The global comparative analysis in relation to best practice Aboriginal education, recommends the requirement for standardized mainstream regimes of testing and culturally sensitive evaluation tools. The main motive behind this is acknowledging that the key factor of success is required to be elaborated in a different manner by Aboriginal individuals (Johnston, 2016). Hence, the measurement of success is required to be incorporated.

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