This research is investigating the use of different measures to represent the qualities of students' individual NCEA awards. Such measures need to reflect the original intent of NCEA (to go beyond traditional markers of academic success) while at the same time signalling likely access to post-school learning pathways. This project primarily involves statistical analysis of existing data sets, including NZQA's data-base of standards achieved. Relevant data from the Competent Learners project is being used to check modelling assumptions against actual student profiles and pathways.
This longitudinal study sought to establish whether and how the programmes of learning offered in the senior secondary school changed in response to the new NCEA qualifications regime
This report documents views and experiences of NCEA from NZCER's 2012 National Survey of Secondary Schools. Responses from teachers (1266) and principals (177) predominate, but the report also reflects the responses from parents (1477) and trustees (289). Full details of the sample are in the overview report, Secondary schools in 2012.
This report contains the main findings from NZCER's 2012 national survey of secondary schools. The survey draws on responses from more than half the country’s secondary school principals and from hundreds of teachers, parents and members of boards of trustees and 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.
This paper draws on findings fromn the longitudinal Competent Learners study which has tracked 500 students from when they were in early childhood education to age 20. It focuses on those students who, despite being in the lowest quartile for reading and numeracy competencies at age 8, nevertheless succeeded in gaining a Level 2 or 3 National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) award. The paper analyses the learner qualities that contributed to the difference between these students and other early low achievers (who continued to be low achievers).
This report discusses the impact of NCEA on schools' and teachers' thinking about curriculum. It was funded from NZCER's purchase agreement with the Ministry of Education and is intended to draw on and contribute to NZCER's ongoing NCEA-related research. It explores how innovative teachers and schools think about and enact curriculum change enabled by NCEA.
Drawing on secondary teachers’ experience of standards-based assessment for NCEA, this short article discusses moderation challenges that will face primary teachers as they make overall professional judgments of each student's progress against the new National Standards. Moderation potentially offers rich professional learning possibilities—but only if teachers feel safe to learn, have the time needed, and are given access to robust examples to inform their debates.
Findings from the NZCER National Survey of Secondary Schools 2009
This report draws on data from the three-yearly NZCER National Survey of Secondary Schools, with a particular focus on new data gathered in the 2009 survey round. We asked principals, teachers, trustees, and parents to respond to a set of statements about the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). The findings show support for the qualification has consolidated since 2006.
This report explores ways in which recent changes in the teaching of home economics and geography may be related to the introduction of the National Certificate in Educational Achievement at Year 11 (NCEA Level 1) and at Year 12 (NCEA Level 2). The research describes the nature and extent of the changes that were identified, and explores how these changes seem to be related to teachers’ personal teaching priorities and to professional development initiatives in their schools, as well as to the NCEA.
This research reports on the impact of Level 1 NCEA on the teaching of mathematics and science. It provides an in-depth analysis of the dynamics of change in the study teachers’ mathematics and science classrooms in response to the NCEA implementation. A range of aspects of classroom practice were identified where one way of working or set of emphases could be balanced against another way of working/set of emphases. Findings with respect to shifts in the balances of the alternatives outlined for these aspects of classroom practices are presented.
In the course of standard statistical analyses in the third and final phase of the Learning Curves project, questions were raised about the nature of students’ subject choices. We thought that if well-described patterns of subject choice could be found using our data, then we might also question the relationship of these patterns to available student demographics.
Rosemary Hipkins and Karen Vaughan, with Fiona Beals, Hilary Ferral, and Ben Gardiner
2005
NZCER
Research report
The Learning Curves project has documented changes in the subject and assessment choices offered to senior students in six medium-sized New Zealand secondary schools between 2002 and 2004 as the National Qualifications Framework and National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) reforms were progressively implemented. It has also investigated how students perceive and make their subject choices within the context of each school’s curriculum policies and practices.
