In Australia, it has been observed that there have been significant declines in the proportion of students studying senior sciences over the last two decades (Commonwealth of Australia 2017 & 2018; Steidtmann et.al, 2023). It has been suggested that one of the causes for this decline could be a link between students' literacy achievement and…

Students' prior achievements in school have significant correlations with their later achievements. Specifically, students' prior numeracy achievement is the most important predictor of later numeracy success. However, the assessment of this predictor across gender and its trend across students' year levels is often overlooked or not adequately…

This paper is the third in a series of Analytical Insights papers, which provide accessible, up-to-date analysis of educational datasets. The insights in this paper are drawn from the latest National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) and Longitudinal Literacy and Numeracy in Australia (LLANIA) data to discuss student participation…

According to creative writing pedagogies academic Susanne Gannon ("English in Australia, 54"(2), 43-56, 2019), and the Federal government-commissioned NAPLAN review (McGaw et al., 2020), NAPLAN has restricted how writing is taught in secondary schools. A NAPLAN-influenced structural approach to teaching writing has subsumed the…

A higher proportion of students are privately educated in Australia, compared with many other nations. In this paper, we tested the assumption that private schools offer better quality education than public schools. We examined differences in student achievement on the National Assessment Programme: Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) between public,…

This paper is the second in a series of Analytical Insights papers, which provide accessible, up-to-date analysis of educational datasets. It is the first in a series that uses the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO)'s new Longitudinal Literacy and Numeracy in Australia (LLANIA) dataset to explore educational questions. The paper…

This paper is the first in a series of Analytical Insights papers, which provide accessible, up-to-date analysis of educational datasets. This insights paper draws on the latest National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) data to discuss student participation and engagement with the tests -- factors which impact the quality and…

Australian children from regional, rural and remote (RRR) areas exhibit lower educational outcomes than their peers in metropolitan areas. The mechanisms driving the comparatively poorer educational outcomes of children in RRR areas, however, are not well understood. This paper proposes and tests two sets of factors that may be responsible for…

This report discusses AERO's 2022 analysis of student writing data -- the most extensive investigation into this area ever conducted in Australia. AERO's researchers analysed more than 10 million NAPLAN writing results, spanning 2011 to 2021, and 366 samples of students' NAPLAN writing. Overall, our research suggests that students' writing skills…

In 2022 Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) researchers analysed more than 10 million NAPLAN writing results, spanning 2011 to 2021, and 366 samples of students' NAPLAN writing. Overall, the research suggests that students' writing skills have declined over 7 years (2011 to 2018), with many high school students significantly behind…