Rubrics, Assessment and eProctoring in Education

Reverting to paper tests should only be a stop-gap measure as keeping NAPLAN offline deprives students and teachers of the best data.

Australia can follow the lead of other countries as it seeks to find an alternative to NAPLAN.

About 50 per cent of Australian schools are expected to take part in NAPLAN Online this week. But there are concerns technical glitches could disadvantage some students.

Students who completed NAPLAN reading and spelling online were disadvantaged compared with those who sat the traditional pen-and-paper tests, a new document reveals.

The rollout of online literacy and numeracy testing has been hailed a success with 99.9 per cent of students able to complete the assessment without technical problems.

Their first NAPLAN online test wasn't free of glitches but students at Annandale North Public School said they preferred it to the pen and paper test.

Education Minister Simon Birmingham conceded parents were not convinced about the merits of automated essay marking.

In future, students may be able to choose when and how much of the literacy and numeracy test they sit at once.

The troubled NAPLAN online system was rolled out to 1.5 million students despite earlier practice runs identifying log on failures and slowness in connecting.

NAPLAN can help teachers assess whether literacy and numeracy teaching practices are actually working.

Australia can follow the lead of other countries as it seeks to find an alternative to NAPLAN.

To assess problem-solving, creative and critical thinking skills on NAPLAN would fit with broader movements in education internationally, but there are some questions to address first.

Assessments need to be relevant to the real world and test more complex skills to better predict competency, standards of literacy and teaching.

NAPLAN is great at tracking changes over time and between demographics, but not so great at measuring what factors effect change, engagement or creativity.