Testing

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) measures Year 4 students’ reading literacy achievement. When the last study cycle was conducted in 2016, students in the Russian Federation outperformed their peers in all 50 participating countries and 11 benchmarking regions.

Teachers are often encouraged to take up opportunities to mark external exams or tests. There is extra money to be earned, but they are also often told that it is good professional development. But what do people mean when they say that, and what parts of your professional practice does marking help to develop?

Findings from an evaluation of upper primary and middle school students’ science inquiry skills suggest there is room for improvement in implementing an inquiry-based teaching approach, at least in terms of students’ abilities to undertake scientific inquiry.

The latest Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) results have been released today. Here, we take a closer look at PIRLS 2016: Reporting Australia’s results, which describes the reading literacy achievement of a nationally representative sample of Year 4 students in the international context.

In today’s video Teacher magazine sits down with Australian Council for Educational Research CEO Professor Geoff Masters AO to discuss why it is important that students are involved in the process of setting goals for their own learning and can monitor the progress that they’re making.

In today’s video Teacher magazine sits down with Australian Council for Educational Research CEO Professor Geoff Masters AO to discuss new ways of thinking about assessment.

Further analysis of Australian results from two large-scale international assessments highlight a ‘worrying’ decline in the achievement of disadvantaged students.

When digging in the ACER library archives we found the Crawford Small Parts Dexterity Test. In today’s video, editor Jo Earp gives it a go. Let’s see how she compares.

The report, PISA 2015: A first look at Australia’s results, doesn’t make for pleasant reading. In today’s podcast, Dr Sue Thomson from ACER joins Teacher to discuss the results.

The PISA 2015 test results have brought more bad news for Australia’s education system with student performances in scientific, reading and mathematical literacy all in ‘absolute decline’.