The effectiveness of NAPLAN in measuring student achievement has come under scrutiny, with education experts questioning whether the national assessment is fulfilling its original purpose. Amid growing concerns over high-stakes pressure and the narrowing of the curriculum, calls for a more holistic approach to assessing student progress are gaining traction.
Introduced in 2008, the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) was intended to provide a snapshot of student learning and inform educational policy. However, some academics argue that the test has deviated from its initial objectives, with unintended consequences such as excessive competition between schools and teaching to the test.
Dr Drew Miller, a senior lecturer in child and adolescent learning at the University of Newcastle, believes that while NAPLAN remains a valuable source of data for policymakers, its role in education has become distorted.
“For the policy and research communities, NAPLAN is an incredibly important set of data to understand how students are progressing through their learning, where greater supports are required, and whether policy decisions and specific teaching and learning interventions are having the right impact,” Miller said.
“It has, however, become unmoored from these original goals thanks to confected crisis narratives from the media commentariat. A focus on schools competing for rankings on league tables, a narrowing of the curriculum, and teaching to the test has placed undue pressure on students in what shouldn’t be high stakes testing.”
Miller argued that a reassessment of NAPLAN’s role is necessary. “For NAPLAN to be effective in its goals, we need to reflect on whether the original goals are being met, and if there is a better way to go about it.”
Similarly, Paul Grover, a lecturer in education at Charles Sturt University, contended that mass standardised testing is a flawed approach to measuring educational growth and success.
“Over the past two decades, we have witnessed a range of standardised tests purporting to measure educational growth and individual achievement,” Grover said.
“This has been accompanied by political pressure to publish these tests as a form of ‘league’ table claiming to assess a student’s, a school’s, a teacher’s, or a school system’s performance standard—or all of them at once.”
Grover argued that such an approach undermines the role of educators and fails to capture a student’s intellectual growth over time.
“Mass testing discounts the professional role of the educator and the active involvement and personal agency of the student. [It] is flawed as it cannot assess intellectual growth or achievement throughout a year of diverse learning comprehensively, being a single narrow measure taken during a short test.”
He suggested that a more effective approach to evaluating student achievement would involve multiple assessment methods that consider diverse learning experiences and educator insights.
With growing concerns over NAPLAN’s impact on students and teachers, the discussion over standardised testing in Australia continues, raising critical questions about the best ways to assess and support student learning.