1st Edition

National Testing in Schools An Australian assessment

Edited By Bob Lingard, Greg Thompson, Sam Sellar Copyright 2016
    256 Pages
    by Routledge

    256 Pages
    by Routledge

    Over the last two decades, large-scale national, or provincial, standardised testing has become prominent in the schools of many countries around the globe. National Testing in Schools: An Australian Assessment draws on research to consider the nature of national testing and its multiple effects, including:

    • media responses and constructions such as league tables of performance
    • pressures within school systems and on schools
    • effects on the work and identities of principals and teachers
    • and impacts on the experience of schooling for many young people, including those least advantaged.

    Using Australia as the case site for global concerns regarding national testing, this book will be an invaluable companion for education researchers, teacher educators, teacher education students and teachers globally.

    1. National testing from an Australian perspective
      Bob Lingard, Greg Thompson and Sam Sellar
    2. What national testing data can tell us
      Margaret Wu
    3. The Performative Politics of NAPLAN and MySchool
      Radhika Gorur
    4. Questioning the validity of the multiple uses of NAPLAN data
      Val Klenowski
    5. Local experiences, global similarities: Teacher perceptions of the impacts of national testing
      Greg Thompson
    6. NAPLAN and student wellbeing: teacher perceptions of the impact of NAPLAN on students
      Suzanne Rice, Nicky Dulfer, John Polesel and Clare O’Hanlon
    7. Literacy leadership and accountability: Holding onto ethics in ways that count
      Lyn Kerkham and Barbara Comber
    8. Contesting and ‘capitalising’ on NAPLAN
      Ian Hardy
    9. Understanding the politics of categories in reporting national test results
      Sue Creagh
    10. Students "at risk" and NAPLAN: the "collateral damage"
      J. Joy Cumming, Claire M. Wyatt-Smith and Peta Colbert
    11. NAPLAN, achievement ‘gaps’ and embedding Indigenous perspectives in schooling: Disrupting the ‘decolonial option’
      Greg Vass and Gordon Chalmers
    12. Disadvantaged students’ voices on national testing: The submersion of NAPLAN’s formative potential
      J. Joy Cumming, Claire M. Wyatt-Smith and Peta Colbert
    13. Exploring children’s lived experiences of NAPLAN
      Angelique Howell
    14. NAPLAN and the ‘problem frame’: Exploring representations of NAPLAN in the print media, 2010-2013
      Nicole Mockler
    15. Negotiating with the neighbours: Balancing different accountabilities across a cluster of regional schools
      Marie Brennan, Lew Zipin, Sam Sellar
    16. The life of data: Evolving national testing
      Greg Thompson, Sam Sellar and Bob Lingard

    Biography

    Bob Lingard is a Professorial Research Fellow in the School of Education at The University of Queensland, Australia.

    Greg Thompson is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at Murdoch University, Australia.

    Sam Sellar is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Education at The University of Queensland, Australia.