The National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is intended to assess all Australian students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 to ensure equity and inclusion. This paper explores the extent to which equity and inclusion are achieved for students with disability through NAPLAN reporting. Document analysis of publicly accessible NAPLAN…

Handwriting is an important daily occupation for children. When assessing children's handwriting, it is recommended that clinicians use objective handwriting performance tests as well as solicit children's and parents' perspectives to promote client-centered practice. However, it remains unknown to what extent objective handwriting performance…

National standardized assessment programs have increasingly included extended written performances, amplifying the need for reliable, valid, and efficient methods of assessment. This article examines a two-stage method using comparative judgments and calibrated exemplars as a complement and alternative to existing methods of assessing writing.…

A 7-month mathematics proficiency program was conducted in a primary Australian Indigenous community school. This paper focuses on outlining the specific methodologies employed to explore how students' mathematical proficiency changed throughout the implementation of the program in Years 2 to 4 (~ 7 to 9 years old). A mixed methods research design…

This paper discusses educational insights drawn from a mixed-methods study in Religious Education (RE). The study involved 238 teachers and school leaders, working in 65 Catholic schools in Western Australia (WA). The focus of the study was the educators' perceptions of a large-scale, standardised assessment (LSA) called "The Bishops'…

We describe an application of the assessment triangle, using a learning progression as the "cognition" vertex. We summarize two studies to evaluate whether evidence of student performance is consistent with our progression. In Study 1, we conducted think alouds using draft assessment activities and evaluated responses in relation to the…

The purpose of this study was to explore social skills of young children with reduced social competence, from the perspective of parents and teachers. The study adopted a descriptive, quantitative design using secondary data from occupational therapy assessment information on 241 children. The data were collected using a parent and teacher…

Contemporary learning in Australia necessitates that students develop the capability to play an active role in their own learning. Yet, the student's role as an active agent in the learning process has not been fully examined. Drawing on the notion of assessment as generations informed by conflicting theoretical viewpoints, this paper explores how…

Rubrics for assessing student performance are often seen as providing rich information about complex skills. Despite their widespread usage, however, little empirical research has focused on whether it is possible for rubrics to validly meet their intended purposes. The authors examine a rubric used to assess students' writing in a large-scale…

This action learning study in a year three classroom explored the implementation of five formative assessment principles to assist students' understandings of the scientific topic of liquids and solids. These principles were employed to give students a greater opportunity to express their understanding of the concepts. The study found that the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of an Australian health promoting schools (HPS) project to identify key features of the concept of resilience and how it can be used in a school setting to develop and strengthen protective factors in young people, as a mechanism for improving social functioning and reducing involvement in…

This article examines assessment of students' visual literacy. In the context of current theory of multimodal texts, the author presents key features for visual literacy assessment and how this assessment might be undertaken. The article then proposes a set of principles and a framework for developing assessment tasks in authentic classroom…

This study outlines a formative assessment system using a consistent set of cut scores on Curriculum-Based Measurement-Reading (CBM-R) probes and investigates four statistical methods for establishing cut scores. Cut scores were established using the Minnesota statewide achievement test in reading at grade 3 as the criterion for a successful…

This paper reports on teachers' views of the effects of compulsory numeracy testing in Years 3, 5, and 7 in Queensland schools. Teachers were surveyed on (i) the validity and worth of the tests, (ii) the impact the tests had on their teaching of mathematics, and (iii) how they were using the results of the tests. Although the results reveal a…

Describes the development and evaluation of a communication program which, through speaker-listener settings, aims to give children strategies for recognizing and conveying critical attributes, ignoring redundant information, and sequencing information. (Author/BW)