NAPLAN Participation Falling

Participation rates have been slowly falling since the start of NAPLAN and the decline this year was greater than the long-term rate.

This decreasing participation rate can impact results analysis and the ability to get a clear picture of literacy and numeracy achievement at the national level.

Preliminary NAPLAN 2022 results were not released in August, as they have been in previous years, as closer analysis of the data was required due to lower than usual participation rates.

The data did show that generally students were tracking well in their performance with one area of particular concern among boys.

The percentage of Year 9 boys achieving the National Minimum Standard (NMS) in reading has fallen to its lowest level, below 90 per cent, with 13.5 per cent not achieving the NMS this year, compared to fewer than 8.5 per cent in 2008.

That many students who are not demonstrating the capacity to read at this basic level only a few years before they leave school is of real concern.

When looking at average scores, most long-term trends since 2008 either show steady progress, particularly in primary years, or are stable. The exception is Year 9 spelling, where increases in the early years of NAPLAN are reversing.

Over the long term, writing results – which, as recently reported, had been in decline up to 2018 – are turning around, showing an upward trend for Years 5, 7 and 9 since 2019. This suggests that increased efforts being made by schools and teachers are paying off.

Despite the decline this year in Year 5 numeracy, the long-term trend is positive. Steady rises in Years 3 and 5 reading, and Years 3, 5 and 7 spelling have also continued.

The data from 2021 to 2022, showed an encouraging increase in writing results for Year 9 Indigenous students and students from a language background other than English. There was also an increase in grammar and punctuation results for Indigenous students in Year 7.

“Overall, for a second year in a row, the national level results have defied predictions of drastic falls in performance related to COVID,” ACARA CEO, David de Carvalho, said.

“Aside from numeracy, the Year 5 results are pleasing as 2022 was the first year this cohort sat their NAPLAN tests, following the cancellation of NAPLAN in 2020. It will be important to track whether this cohort’s lower numeracy achievement affects their results in Years 7 and 9,” he said.

Of the approximately 4.7 million NAPLAN tests sat by students, there was a total of 48 substantiated aggregated incidents in 2022, of which one was cheating, 8 were security breaches and 39 were “general breaches”. There were 65 substantiated aggregated incidents in 2021 and 88 in 2019. The number of reported test incidents is extremely small.

NAPLAN was successfully undertaken in schools across the country and this was the first year all schools took the test online. A record 4.3 million online tests were submitted by more than 1.2 million students in 9,315 campuses and schools across Australia.

From 2023, NAPLAN tests will be held in Term One, allowing results to be returned to systems, schools and parents earlier in the year.