Schools’ online tests may not compute

Next week, about one million Australian children will spend several hours over three days working their way through national reading, writing, spelling, grammar and maths tests.

One controversy or another has swirled around the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy exams since they started eight years ago.

Concerns were raised that stressed children were crying or vomiting on test days, that some schools were doctoring their students’ answers or giving them extra help, that the increased focus on literacy and numeracy was taking time away from other important subjects such as art or sport and that comparing schools’ results against each other on a website would stigmatise the poor performers.

Some of those concerns, generated more often by outraged academics and teachers’ unions than by parents, have dwindled in recent years.

But a new controversy is looming over the NAPLAN tests which students take every two years, in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9.

Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne has been pushing to replace the pencil-and-paper tests with computer-based tests to provide accurate feedback to schools and parents far more quickly.

All State education ministers agreed late last year to start running the tests online from 2017 on an “opt-in basis” over several years, but no later than 2019.

The Australian Curriculum, Reporting and Assessment Authority, which develops and marks the NAPLAN tests, says this could be the last year that some students take the paper-based version because when they are tested again, in two years, it will be delivered online.

But the message coming from many WA schools is there is no way they will be ready to start computer-based tests by 2017 because they lack the necessary hardware or band width. Given that schools are being squeezed for funding, it seems unlikely that Treasury will be doling out money for online tests.

This raises valid concerns about whether WA students will be disadvantaged when compared with children in other States.

One reason for replacing manual tests with computer-based assessments is to allow schools to get their students’ results back within weeks instead of months, so they can teach concepts students may not have grasped.

Another reason is that computer-based tests allow questions to be tailored to students’ ability levels by changing their level of difficulty depending on children’s responses. Students who struggle are directed to easier questions, while more able students are diverted to harder questions.

WA Primary Principals Association president Stephen Breen said this week that even though the expense of equipping public schools with the technology needed for online testing would be “massive”, schools that don’t have it would be unfairly disadvantaged if they took longer to get back their students’ results. And principals were not confident about the validity of comparing schools across the nation using results from different types of tests — handwritten versus computer-based.

Shadow education minister Sue Ellery echoed that concern: “We want everyone using the same tools — you need the methodology to be the same to make sure you are measuring apples with apples.”

While ACARA’s assessment and reporting general manager Stanley Rabinowitz says concerns about comparability are unfounded, he concedes the results gleaned from the pencil and paper tests would not be as precise.

Results from both sets of tests would be compared by placing them on the same measurement scale.

“The difference is, the paper version may have a little less precision but it will still give you a score that’s comparable,” Mr Rabinowitz said. “The reliability of that score will be a little lower but still very acceptable.”

To add to the annual NAPLAN wrangling, another squabble is emerging over plans to use computers to mark the writing component of the test, with education professionals claiming machines can’t assess creativity. Mr Rabinowitz says there is plenty of evidence to show computers can do the job but the process would also be monitored by teachers.

However, that particular debate is one WA is unlikely to have for some time because there is no clarity on when online tests will be rolled out here.

A spokesman for Mr Pyne’s office said individual schools were expected to be able to opt in to the online NAPLAN tests when they were technologically ready.

But WA Education Minister Peter Collier said though he agreed “in principle” to work towards a 2019 date, a final decision on the timeline would not be made until an implementation plan was finalised by a NAPLAN online working party.

The School Curriculum and Standards Authority, which is responsible for administering NAPLAN tests in WA, already has experience running online exams after implementing computer-based tests for selected Year 10 students last year. Students now have to pass the Online Literacy and Numeracy Assessment to achieve high school graduation.

When the first OLNA tests took place, technical glitches such as power blackouts, loss of internet connection or school server failure meant that some pupils had to re-sit it later in the year. Given that NAPLAN is a much bigger logistical exercise, involving primary school students as well as secondary, SCSA chief executive Allan Blagaich says it would need to be sure all schools were ready before going ahead with the online version.

If the Barnett Government believes there are advantages to online testing, then it needs to provide adequate support.

If it does not think putting NAPLAN tests online is worthwhile, or can’t afford the implementation costs, it begs the question why WA agreed in the first place.