News
This report documents views and experiences of NCEA from NZCER's 2012 National Survey of Secondary Schools..It shows support for NCEA has remained high among principals and consolidated among teachers, school trustees and parents. It’s the first time parental support has risen above 50 percent in the survey series and it was higher among parents with a child in the senior school.
Schools have generally welcomed the recent changes to NCEA such as endorsement of whole courses with merit or excellence and the increased support provided by best practice workshops for teachers. However the report shows the high teacher workload associated with NCEA remains unresolved. It also explores views on whether NCEA is driving the curriculum and includes responses to the Government’s recently announced policy target that by 2017, 85 percent of students should gain an NCEA Level 2 qualification or its equivalent.
We've prepared two surveys - Treejack studies - which will help NZCER re-organize content on our website. We would be delighted if you could assist us by completing both - they take no more than 10-15 minutes each to do.
You will be asked to find a certain item, then presented with a list of links, which you sort through until you arrive at one that you think helps you complete the task.
By completing both surveys you'll also be in the draw for ten $50 book vouchers, which we will advise once we have sufficient completions.
The survey links, which are live now:
The Margaret M Blackwell Travel Fellowship is a grant to enable early childhood education practitioners to travel to study a particular topic. The fellowship is now open for applications and closes on 30 August, 2013. The topics for 2013 are:
- Developing collaborative communities of practice in linguistically and culturally diverse communities
- Encouraging environmental awareness in young children
More information is available here.
The original development of the STAR (Supplementary Test of Achievement in Reading) Test was carried out for NZCER by Dr Warwick Elley, now Emeritus Professor of Education. He also led the team that revised the test in 2010-2011. He has had a letter to the editor printed in the latest Listener,which we've posted in our new blog, NZCER on assessment.
Newsletter 1 for 2013 has been published, with information about our recent research projects, books, products and events.
Secondary schools in 2012 is the latest from NZCER's national survey series.
The survey draws on responses from 177 secondary school principals and from hundreds of teachers, parents and members of boards of trustees. The survey was carried out in July and August 2012. It is part of a national survey series conducted by NZCER since 1989 to track issues and trends across the education system.
There are many positives in the findings but they also highlight persistent concerns about funding levels, workload, support and access to reliable technology.
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You can find some useful new resources developed by NZCER and the University of Waikato on the key competencies on the TKI website.
The Key Competency Indicator project was led by NZCER chief researcher Rosemary Hipkins with Associate Professor Bronwen Cowie from Waikato, and carried out for the Ministry of Education. It aims to help schools check how well they're doing at integrating the five key competencies across all learning areas in the school. The research team developed a self-audit tool for schools and a series of rich examples of practice, covering all the key competencies and different learning areas. The next step is to develop some materials to help parents understand the key competencies.
NZCER completely stands by the validity and reliability of the STAR test. It was redeveloped over a two year period, with more than 16,000 students participating in the process of pilots, national and standardization trials. This process gives us the empirical data required for generating reliable data and test results.
In an article in The Listener and repeated in the New Zealand Herald, some principals have raised concerns about student results under the revised STAR. Assessment practice changes over time. Since 2006, NZCER has been redeveloping all our standardised tests to draw upon current thinking and research in test development. One of the key changes has been the introduction of a scale score and we have been encouraging schools to make greater use of scale scores for data analysis over the last 7 years. This was a new development with STAR and the concerns raised highlight the complex nature of the assessment analysis and reporting schools are now required to do. At NZCER we need to do a better job of working alongside schools to communicate about the tests and to support schools with their data analysis. Activities planned include a new assessment blog and a series of workshops.
NZCER has invested thousands of dollars and involved thousands of teachers and students in the redevelopment process. There has been absolutely no political pressure to inflate results from these tests and if there was, we would ignore it and stand by the empirical data gained from the rigorous test development processes we use. NZCER has deep expertise in test development, and particular strength in our psychometric work. We stand by our tests and regularly review the data generated by NZ students completing the published tests to ensure that we continue to provide tests of a high quality.
The NZCER Marking Service is gearing up to assist schools with online analysis of student achievement in PATs and STAR in 2013. Log on or find out more here.
The Australasian Science Education Research Association (ASERA) conference is being held in Wellington in July 2013. NZCER is hosting the conference in association with Victoria University, Wellington.
Where: Te Papa Tongarewa. Wellington, New Zealand.
When: 2-5 July 2013
The conference is now open for abstracts, papers and registrations. You can access the registration page here.