Comparing student motivations for and emotional responses to national standardised tests and internal school tests: The devil in the detail

National testing of students has become an increasingly prevalent policy tool, often implemented to drive improvement through increased accountability and heightened competition between schools. Such testing has been found to generate negative emotional responses among students, including increased stress and anxiety . However, there is little examining whether such responses are associated specifically with national testing regimes or are more general responses to testing situations. This study surveyed 206 students in Australian secondary schools to compare responses to NAPLAN and internal school tests. Students reported higher expectations for their performance in internal school tests than for NAPLAN, higher levels of boredom for NAPLAN and greater levels of confidence for their internal school tests. While most students reported low levels of negative emotional responses to NAPLAN, a small group of students reported strong negative emotional responses to both NAPLAN and internal school tests, suggesting that negative responses to national testing programs may be more dependent on the individual student.

Changes in pre-service teacher self-efficacy for teaching in relation to professional experience placements

This article aims to contribute new, longitudinal evidence on teacher self-efficacy (TSE) by investigating changes in TSE over the last 2 years of an Australian initial teacher education program. Two hundred and one pre-service teachers were surveyed at three timepoints: (1) after the first professional experience placement, (2) before and (3) after the final placement, using the Scale for Teacher Self-Efficacy. Data were analysed using multilevel modelling. TSE for the domains of classroom management and student engagement decreased significantly between the first and before the commencement of the last professional experience placements. All three dimensions of TSE – instructional strategies, student engagement and classroom management – increased significantly during the final placement.

Gender Bias in New South Wales Higher School Certificate (HSC) Physics

A sense of belonging is an important factor for the persistence of girls in the study of physics. Content and imagery that presents the field as a masculine domain will undermine belonging and make it more difficult for girls to establish a physics identity that is congruent with their gender identity. The physics syllabus, final examinations and commonly used textbooks associated with the New South Wales Higher School Certificate were examined for gendered content. It was found that an emphasis on the history of physics in the syllabus has resulted in content and images in which male figures significantly outnumber female figures. This gendered content will be counter-productive to other efforts to increase the participation of girls in physics and suggestions on how this can be addressed are made.

Learning progressions/trajectories in mathematics: Supporting reform at scale

In recent years, attention has turned to the development of evidenced-based learning progressions/trajectories as a means of identifying the likely paths learners might take in developing a deep, well-connected understanding of key aspects of mathematics. However, the extent to which this work influences what happens in mathematics classrooms varies greatly depending on the prevailing relationship between curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. This article will draw on current policy documents and the literature to challenge current assumptions at the national level about what constitutes a learning progression. It will draw briefly on the results of a recently completed, large-scale study on mathematical reasoning in the middle years of schooling to make a case for evidenced-based learning progressions/trajectories as boundary objects in reconnecting and rebalancing the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment relationship to support reform at scale.

The case for a sub-element ‘measuring matter’ within the Australian national numeracy learning progression

Australia has a National Numeracy Learning Progression (NNLP) that is strongly aligned with the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics. This article examines how a sub-element within this progression could be impacting students’ learning of Science. This sub-element is firmly based on Mathematics education research as to how students build their understanding of geometric measurement (the structure of length, area and volume). Mathematics educators subsequently researched children’s measurement of mass and included it within the same sub-element of the NNLP. The contexts in which mass and volume are measured in Mathematics are different to those used in teaching Science. This article presents two studies that used variation theory and task-based interviews of children in Years 5 and 6, to explore their thinking about mass and volume in a Science context. The findings suggest that mathematical constructs in geometric measurement could be constraining the development of scientific ideas about matter. This research has implications for furthering the development of the NNLP to encompass scientific aspects of measuring matter.

An empirically based practical learning progression for generalisation, an essential element of algebraic reasoning

Generalisation is a key feature of learning algebra, requiring all four proficiency strands of the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics (AC:M): Understanding, Fluency, Problem Solving and Reasoning. From a review of the literature, we propose a learning progression for algebraic generalisation consisting of five levels. Our learning progression is then elaborated and validated by reference to a large range of assessment tasks acquired from a previous project Reframing Mathematical Futures II (RMFII). In the RMFII project, Rasch modelling of the responses of over 5000 high school students (Years 7–10) to algebra tasks led to the development of a Learning Progression for Algebraic Reasoning (LPAR). Our learning progression in generalisation is more specific than the LPAR, more coherent regarding algebraic generalisation, and enabling teachers to locate students’ performances within the progression and to target their teaching. In addition, a selection of appropriate teaching resources and marking rubrics used in the RMFII project is provided for each level of the learning progression.

Designing a developmental progression to assess students’ conceptual understandings by focusing on the language demands in Science

Few would argue the value of learning progressions in providing useful structures for selecting and sequencing in a developmental manner the key components of an ‘intended curriculum’. Yet, there are pervading issues around what is meant by a developmental sequence, along with how they are used to assess what learners know, understand and can do. One key oversight in Science is recognising the role of technical and non-technical language in student conceptual development. This article reports on the construction of a hypothesised learning progression that identifies students’ progress in understanding essential concepts in the Chemical Sciences from Foundation to Year 6. It is based upon an extensive analysis of the technical and non-technical language of the Australian Curriculum: Science. The progression was constructed by focusing upon learner-appropriate language and scientific understanding with the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome model ( Pegg, 2018 ) providing the theoretical basis for ensuring systematic and objective rigour in the resultant developmental progression.

Learning progressions and the Australian curriculum mathematics: The case of statistics and probability

Mathematics curricula have traditionally focused on content knowledge, often in the form of a scope and sequence of increasingly difficult mathematics. The importance of using and applying mathematics is recognised in the current Australian Curriculum Mathematics (AC: M) as ‘proficiencies’ that are intended to be integrated with the content. There is little support for teachers to develop these proficiencies – reasoning, understanding, problem solving and fluency. Learning progressions are sequences of learning that focus on cognitive processes, and thus provide a useful basis for curriculum development. Using an empirical Statistical Reasoning Learning Progression as an exemplar, a new approach to curriculum development is suggested that links content knowledge with the proficiencies. The outcome is a zone-based, rather than year level based, curriculum that allows teachers to target their teaching, so that students develop increasingly sophisticated understanding of statistics and probability.

Using partial knowledge to inform the creation of learning progressions

The aim of this study was to show that some of the errors made by students when responding to mathematics assessment items can indicate progress in the development of conceptual understanding. By granting partial credit for specific incorrect responses by early secondary students, estimates of the difficulty of demonstrating full and partial knowledge of skills associated with the development of proportional reasoning were determined using Rasch analysis. The errors were confirmed as indicators of progress, and hence partial knowledge, when the thresholds of achievement followed a logical order: The greater the proficiency of the students, the more likely they were to receive a higher score. Consideration of this partial knowledge can enhance the descriptions of the likely behaviours of students at the various levels of learning progressions and this can be informative for teachers in their planning of learning activities.

Developing reasoning within a geometric learning progression: Implications for curriculum development and classroom practices

Promoting reasoning is the goal of mathematics education. While reasoning behaviours can be observed, how to characterise them and nurture their growth remains ambiguous. In this article, we report our effort in drafting a learning progression and geometric thinking model and using them to investigate Australian students’ geometric reasoning abilities. The data were taken from a large-scale study into the development of mathematical reasoning. Rasch analysis resulted in eight thinking zones being charted. Using a mixed method, we analysed 446 Year 7 to 10 students’ responses on a task that requires them to enlarge a logo, state its coordinates and calculate the enlarged area. In-depth, fine-grained analysis of students’ explanations revealed the range of skills and techniques students used to reason about the situation. The findings suggest that higher level reasoning was characterised by evidence of increased visualisation skills and proficient use of mixed mediums to communicate intent. The implications of the findings for curriculum and classroom practice are discussed.