The synergy, or lack thereof, between large-scale and classroom assessment has been fiercely debated in both academic and policy spheres for decades around the world. This paper seeks to explicate how different countries are utilizing large-scale testing and test results at the classroom level. Through country profiles, this paper analyzes…

This paper argues neoliberal programs of government in education are equipping parents for calculativeness. Regimes of testing and the publication of these results and other organizational data are contributing to a public economy of numbers that increasingly oblige citizens to calculate. Using the notions of calculative and market devices, this…

PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) is the fourth assessment in the current trend series, following PIRLS 2001, 2006, and 2011. There were 61 participants in PIRLS 2016, including 50 countries and 11 benchmarking entities (e.g., regions of countries as well as additional grades or language groups from the participating…

This article explores the neo-institutional theory of global policy convergence, or "isomorphism", by comparatively examining one of its most recent manifestations--the global diffusion of national standardised testing--in Australia and Japan. By understanding the particular configurations of national testing as being conditioned by both…

Grouping students by academic achievement level has been practised in a wide variety of forms and contexts for over a century. Despite a general consensus in the research that between-class achievement grouping provides no overall benefit for students, the practice has persisted in various guises. Between-class achievement grouping is common in…

The "cloze" test is one possible investigative instrument for predicting text comprehensibility. Conceptual coding of student replacement of deleted words has been considered to be more valid than exact coding, partly because conceptual coding seemed fairer to poorer readers. This paper reports a quantitative study of 447 Australian…

This paper evaluates a 20-item assessment of citizenship literacy in an adult sample comprising 179 persons of English-speaking and non-English speaking background. The results indicated that the assessment was internally consistent and that as expected it distinguished English-speaking from non-English speaking participants. The pattern of…

An investigation of factors which differentiate between university lecturers in relation to publication output is reported. The study drew on data from lecturers working full-time at two large Australian universities. Measures of research publication output were used to select two groups of lecturers (N[subscript 1] = 119; N[subscript 2] = 119);…

Decision-making regarding intensive instructional support for children with special needs should build from children's instructional needs, and not from diagnostic labelling and criteria for funding eligibility. Cognitive referencing, the use of results on intelligence and language quotients to decide children's academic options and funding…

In this study, a sample of Australian academics from two institutions, was used to investigate factors which relate to lecturer self-efficacy. A questionnaire was utilised to obtain responses in three separate areas, namely, research, teaching, and service (i.e., administration/professional engagement). Subsequent factor analysis resulted in the…

An external evaluation of the impact of the Australian Studies in Student Performance (ASSP) Project on schools and systems is reported. The presented chapters follow in sequence the development of ASSP. The first chapter places the Australian Project in an international context and outlines the major questions dealt with in this evaluation.…

Discusses the fairness of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) internationally and considers the results for Australia in more detail, focusing on samples of 516 and 583 students. For Australian students, there is some evidence that the TIMSS performance assessment is less prone to equity problems than the main assessment.…

In July 2001, the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) agreed to the development of assessment instruments and key performance measures for reporting on student skills, knowledge and understandings in primary science. It directed the newly established Performance Measurement and Reporting Taskforce…

In 2003 the first nationally-comparable science assessment was designed, developed and carried out under the auspices of the national council of education ministers, the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA). In 2006 a second science assessment was conducted and, for the first time nationally, the…

This report presents the results and sample items of a reading test and a mathematics test administered to Year 5 and Year 7 primary level students in 1989 in the Northern Territory of Australia. The Primary Assessment Program (PAP) monitors achievement in English and Mathematics in urban schools. All students in Years 5 and 7 are tested in…