Strengths
In the elementary grades of public schools in Australia, test results are kept secret from parents. Parents meet with teachers officially twice a year, and during those meetings, they can look at a sample of the child’s work and get a very vague general idea. In addition, a report is issued twice a year, in which there are estimates (Rose et al., 2018, p. 9). Therefore, the strength of NAPLAN is the only standardized test system in Australia (other than graduation) that allows parents to understand how their child is learning. In addition, the strength of this exam is that it allows you to compare the performance of the school with other schools.
The strength of NAPLAN is also the fairness of assessments principle: there is one list of tasks and one answer option for them, which completely eliminates bias. This exam grants the abolition of corruption: no one accuses teachers of bribery during its conduct. The presence of tight control by teachers during the exam is also one of the strengths of NAPLAN (Gannon & Dove, 2021, p. 664). The lack of the opportunity to write off allows students to demonstrate the knowledge gained during the academic year.
Weaknesses
Some experts have justified doubts about how objectively the exam is compiled. This is due to the fact that in many humanities, the information is too outdated, and the exam does not allow for discussions during which it was possible to assess the level of knowledge as it was during the oral exam (Gannon & Dove, 2021, p. 660). There is no version of one’s own opinion on these subjects, and the answers provided may not coincide with the student’s point of view. Possible difficulties in passing the exam may be caused by the twofold formulation of inadequate questions.
Another weakness of NAPLAN is due to the fact that teachers have to do a lot of additional paperwork to analyze the work of children, which is not paid. Control and measuring materials are unusual for the Australian education system. They are used only for final exams, and they bring mistakes and extra stress to ordinary students (Gannon & Dove, 2021, p. 659). Among the weaknesses of NAPLAN, one can also distinguish a radical substitution of school values.
Opportunities
NAPLAN tasks and their evaluation criteria are developed at the state level and are uniform for the whole country. The results also make it possible to identify a shortage of teachers at the level of an individual school, provide methodological support and organize targeted training of their qualifications. It is for the improvement of educational programs and the elimination of gaps in the knowledge of schoolchildren that the NAPLAN exam is designed (Brady & Kennedy, 2019, p. 65). All these points constitute the opportunities of the exam, which consists in the opportunity to improve the quality of education by identifying gaps in knowledge and personnel and collecting statistics.
Threats
In Australia, the NAPLAN test is held every year in every school in grades 3, 5, 7, and 9. Every year, in newspapers, on TV, and on the radio, the examination provokes parents’ indignation. Some doctors claim that the exam causes stress and nervous breakdowns in children (Brady & Kennedy, 2019, p. 70). The phenomenon of anger in connection with school exams, which is the main threat during the exam, can be explained by the peculiarities of the local culture and the mindset of the average Australian. Most parents do not welcome homework, tests, and other forms of traditional schooling. Thus, the threat of NAPLAN is the disapproval of this system on the part of parents.
Principles of Assessment
An essential component of the teacher’s work is not only the learning process but also the assessment process. Some principles underpin this assessment and provide reliable information on learning outcomes. Cranley et al. (2021) state that “the four universal principles which underpin effective assessment, and which are most often referred to in literature and training manuals, are reliability, fairness, flexibility, and validity.” (p. 5). To better understand their usefulness in assessing the student’s progress, it will be essential to consider each of the principles in detail.
One crucial factor in the assessment of students is the consideration of evaluation materials, such as tests. Reliability is a factor that shows the quality of these materials. According to Cranley et al. (2021), “the accuracy, precision and reproducibility of an assessment tool demonstrate its reliability” (p. 6). There are different types, such as, test-retest reliability, parallel form’s reliability, inter-rater reliability, and internal consistency reliability.
Flexibility is an essential indicator of students’ interest in solving assessment tasks. It implies a certain level of freedom for students to be able to learn what they want to know. Cranley et al. (2021) claim that, “flexibility measures can increase students’ motivation for and engagement in the learning process” (p. 11). The next component of assessment principles is fairness. This concept implies the understanding of the task of all students (Cranley et al., 2021, p. 11). If the assessment is fair, students had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with similar tasks earlier.
Validity is an important indicator of the quality of the assessment tool. It determines whether the content of the task meets the stated objectives of the assessment (Cranley et al., 2021, p. 12). Validity makes a vital conclusion about whether the students’ knowledge that should have been evaluated will be evaluated. Just as in the case of fairness, validity implies that the task is related to the understanding of the students that they have gained through learning. It indicates that there will be an assessment of the specific knowledge.
References
Brady, L., & Kennedy, K. (2019). Assessment and reporting. Pearson Education.
Cranley, L., Johnson, G., & Harmon, W. (2021). Assessment, feedback and reporting (1st ed.). Cengage AU.
Gannon, S., & Dove, J. (2021). Artefacts, practices and pedagogies: teaching writing in English in the NAPLAN era. The Australian Educational Researcher, 48(14), 657–679.
Rose, J., Low-Choy, S., Singh, P., & Vasco, D. (2018). NAPLAN discourses: A systematic review after the first decade. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 30(5), 1–11.