REVISED CLASSIFICATION OF ACER TESTS
As a result of a review of its test dis- tribution policy, ACER has changed the classification of a number of tests. The new policy will be imple- mented immediately. For the infor- mation of test users, these changes are set out below. The changes will be incorporated in the new Educat- ional Catalogue to be released at the beginning of 1972.
QUALIFICATIONS
Tests and diagnostic aids pub- lished or distributed by ACER must be used with professional care. They will be supplied only to persons with sufficient qua I ifications and experi- ence for their effective• use and in- terpretation.
Basically, tests and aids are classified into two categories as follows:
T Tests and aids which require some knowledge of test con- struction and use, and of support- ing educational and psycholog- ical studies, for their administrat- ion, scoring, and interpretation.
They are available to teachers.
P Tests and aids which require sub- stantial understanding of testing, and supporting psychological studies, together with supervised experience in the use of these devices.
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10044909Tests listed in the Educational Catalogue have been placed in cat- egory T, with certain exceptions for tests for which special conditions apply.
These are designated by the letter S.
S When a test is labelled S it is available to those, with the spec- ialist qualification indicated (e.g., speech therapist, language tea- cher). Evidence of training is re- quired for purchase, of these tests which may only be used in the course of the user's normal em- ployment.
Since all but seven of the tests in the Educational Catalogue fall into T category, letter symbols will ap- pear in the margin only for the seven exceptions. These tests will be de- signated in two ways:
TS available both to teachers and to designated specialists (e.g., speech therapist);
S available to specialist teachers (e.g., language specialist) only.
The following tests are affected by the new classification:
TS (sp. th.) ACER Adult Word Knowledge-Form B
TS (sp. th.) Dominion Individual Diagnostic Test of Word Analysis Ski I ls-Primary
S (lang. spec.) Elementary Mod- ern Language Apitude Test
S (lang. spec.) Modern Language Aptitude Test
S ( lang. spec.) Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery
S ( commercia I t.) Shorthand Apt- itude Test
S (music spec.) Wing Tests of Musical Appreciation and Ability
ORDERING
For tests labelled S it will be necessary for the specialist teacher concerned to sign all orders for these materials. Since· we have not, in the past, maintained a register of the qualifications of such teachers, it will be necessary for teachers in- tending to use category S tests to provide us with details of qualifica- tions and training in their specialist field. These will be filed for quick checking by our sales staff when processing orders. It will be neces- sary to refer back to the schools any orders for category S tests not countersigned by the specialist teacher.
We regret any delays which may occur in processing during the intro- ductory period of this policy, but once schools are aware of the change and ensure that orders are correctly signed, no problems should arise.
ASEP
Progress
Equipped with a full house of sci- ence writers, researchers, evaluat- ors, and a production team, the Aus- tra I ian Science Education Project (ASEP) is busy producing science materials for students in junior sec- ondary education in Australia.
At ASEP headquarters writers are preparing materials on such things as Making Life Easier, Male And Fe- male, Australian Landscapes, Pop- ulations, Signals Without Words, and many others.
These subject areas are determin- ed according to how directly they relate to the child's understanding of his environment.
Of the more than 40 units plan- ned, a total of 34 are now in some stage of development. Four of these units have completed first trials and are being rewritten, while three units are currently being tried-out in scho- ols close to ASEP headquarters.
Second trials of rewritten units will begin in schools throughout Austra-
lia in February 1972.
There are 87 teachers in some 53 schools who are involved in teach- ing ASEP units.
PLANTS
The most recent unit produced by ASEP, entitled Plants, is designed to allow students to investigate the diversity of plant types, and how the variety of plants changes from one locality to another. Materials in- clude a set of slides, produced by two members of the project staff, and a film to be used as an intro- duction to the unit. The· film was made by Swinburne College of Tech- nology specifically for ASEP.
The Plants unit is typical of most units, having two student booklets, 2
Three students prepare a 'survival waterhole' from the ASEP unit The World of the Soil.
a teacher's guide, a test booklet for students, and some worksheets.
TEACHER EDUCATION AND EVALUATION
The teacher education section of ASEP organizes preparatory work- shops to help trial teachers present these new materials to their stu- dents. The teachers then attend fort- nightly seminars to evaluate the progress of the units and to discuss the units with other teachers and project staff.
Trial classes are frequently visit- ed by ASEP staff for the purpose of evaluating, too. The project believes that the trial teachers are in fact the key means of evaluating how effective ASEP materials are, and how the units can be improved.
According to one teacher trialling Mice And Men, 'the ASEP approach gives the kids a chance to become scientists rather than just learning science'.
Working parties from the other states are continuing to work with project staff, having already devel-
oped first trial versions of nine units.
At present a working party at Goul- burn Teachers' College is writing a unit on how to use ASEP materials.
AUDIO-VISUAL AIDS The audio-visual materials to ac- company ASEP units are contribut- ing to the effectiveness of student materials, according to the Assistant Director, Service, Dr Gregor Ram- sey. 'We believe learning and teach- ing are enjoyable and meaningful experiences and that's why the in- tegration of films, slides, tapes, posters, and charts, all make learn- ing fun', Dr Ramsey said.
The production manager, Mr Ray Smith, is working closely with writ- ers at ASEP in order to create lively and interesting layouts for the learn- ing materials for students.
ASEP materials are written in such a way that students are stim- ulated to be inquirers. Assistant Director, Development, Mr Les Dale stated, 'The teacher no longer is the source of all knowledge, because the student learns through doing ACER Newsletter No 10: September 1971
activities, through reading, and thro- ugh learning to solve his own pro- blems, instead of always asking the teacher. Eventua I ly the student be- comes self-reliant. The teacher is freed, too, to be a guide and a director.'
THE PROJECT
The project is financed for five
years by contributions from the Com- monwea Ith government through the Department of Education and Sci- ence, and from state governments through the education departments in all Australian states. The mater- ials should be available to schools by the end of 1974.
The, future of ASEP, though, is dependent on funds. Project Dir-
ector, Mr H. 0. Howard, stated his concern for the future when he said, 'Having proved we can produce learning materials, we, now await confirmation of their effectiveness.
I believe the skills of the staff are adequate to meet quality criteria, but available funds may prevent us from producing the quantity of materials desired.'
PRIMARY EVALUATION PROGRAMME
In 1961 ACER and the New South Wales Department of Education be- gan work on the NSW Basic Skills Testing Project. Under this scheme a great number of primary schools in NSW were able to use tests of reading, listening, study skills, spell- ing, and mathematics every Septem- ber in order to measure achievement of their pupils against state norms.
Upon the introduction of decimal currency and the revision of the curriculum in mathematics, tests in mathematics were withdrawn from the project.
This year the project enters a new phase under the title of the Primary Evaluation Programme. In the first place the existing tests will be avail- able for use throughout the year, and in whatever combination the class- room teacher elects to use. But even more important is the fact that seven new mathematics tests will be made available.
TOPIC TESTS IN MATHEMATICS The tests in this series have been written to measure achievement in seven topics of the NSW Curriculum for Primary Schools ( 1967 revis- ion). The seven tests are: M1 Count- ing, Numeration, and Place Value;
M2 Sets; M3 Operations on Count- ing Numbers; M4 Rational Number;
M5 Problems; M6 Graphs; M7 Shapes.
ACER Newsletter No 10: September 1971
Each test is intended to measure some of the more important under- standings underlying the particular curriculum topic. For example Test M3 is concerned with understand- ings about the operations of addit- ion, multiplication, subtraction, and division, and about the properties of 0, of 1, and of odd and even num- bers in respect to these, operations.
It is concerned with understandings about operations expressed through number sentences; understandings about the relationships between op- erations, about the commutative, the associative, and the distributive laws. It is also concerned with ap- plications of skill in using algorisms.
The tests are intended for use by teachers in Grades 4, 5, and 6 in New South Wales who want to determine
• the range of achievement within a class on a particular topic,
• the degree of mastery of the topic by each child,
• the pattern of errors within a topic for a particular child, or for groups of children.
DEVELOPMENT
The topics to be tested and the scope of each topic were decided by an informal committee consisting of departmental curriculum officers,
principals of schools, and research officers from ACER. The specificat- ion for each test followed closely the relevant sections of the curric- ulum statement where it referred to understanding, knowledge, and skills.
Sets of items drafted at ACER, where they were subject to review and criticism by small groups of specialists, were submitted to the informal departmental committee.
Here they were again reviewed and in some cases modified before being tried out in a sma 11 sample of scho- ols. This departmental committee also drafted new items where it felt sections of a topic were not adequ- ately covered. After try-out, the items were again reviewed, one test at a time, and the trial data ana- lysed for ambiguity of wording, in- appropriate levels of difficulty, and ineffectiveness of alternative ans- wers. In some cases, particularly where trial data or review suggested the need for a radical revision of an item, the test was tried out and the whole, process was repeated.
It is expected that the complete series will be, available to govern- ment schools in New South Wales for use during the last few months of 1971 . It is likely that arrange- ments will later be made to release them for use in non-government schools in NSW also.
3
FACTORS IN EDUCATIONAL CHANGE
'We're having trouble with our re- lations.' This long-familiar plaint has justifiably become the cry of the educator. Formerly to operate a school or university may have seem- ed a neatly circumscribed and re- latively straightforward affair. The whole business seemed essentially self-contained. Now policy-makers and practitioners are conscious in one way or another of factors and forces coming to bear on their sys- tems from the outside community.
Under pressure from within and without, established structures and customs seem less and less relevant.
Reformist efforts to alter things are, of course, nothing new. For decades various groups within the, educational world have sought to have their proposals accepted. So far in Australia they have not met with much success. The inbuilt inertia of traditional forms of organ- ization and procedure tends to run counter to moves for major change.
To modify rather than to replace has thus more often proved acceptable policy.
PRESENT TRENDS
The impact of the current course of events, however, seems certain to prove far-reaching. Rather than merely react to greater demands, policy-makers need to anticipate changes and plan accordingly. To do so they have to understand the· nat- ure of these processes and be able to judge their likely effects.
One first step is to put present trends and phenomena in some sort
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The ACER Newsletter is pub-
1 ished quarterly by the Austra- lian Council for Educational Research, Frederick Street, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122. Com- munications should be ad- dressed to the Editors, ACER Newsletter, at this address.
of perspective. In this way we can distinguish long-term influences from more recent ones and come to understand more clearly existing structures and approaches. The ex- perience of the past can help in providing a guide to formulating viable policies and to setting up pilot ventures.
For these• reasons, the study of factors in educational change being undertaken at ACER has selected two periods for close analysis. The immediate postwar years of 1945- 50 and the recent time of 1965 and 1970 saw unusua I ly intense pres- sures for reform in education thro- ughout Australia. In adopting a com- prehensive approach, we have taken account of political, economic, soc- ial, as well as educational factors and forces at work.
A major aim, therefore, is to re- late the, actions of pressure groups and others in the field of education to major developments in other soc- ia I enterprises. Pol itica I platforms, government budgets, together with community attitudes, serve to indi- cate the kind of priority given to education within a particular setting.
A synthesis of these various ele- ments does much to explain the degree of success experienced by would-be reformers.
REFORMS?
What constitutes desirable reform in education depends very much, of course, on one's particular point of view. Often the attitudes evinced by teachers' unions have differed mark- edly from those reflected by political parties, public administrators, and others. Teachers have increasingly sought to shape policy and practice in line with their own goals and in- terests. The latter may not always marry in well with changes advo- cated by outsiders to the school systems or even by those within them. To study, therefore, the res-
pective roles of those individuals and groups involved in a particular situation helps us to understand the origin of present-day policies and current responses to specific issues.
The task of introducing success- fully major reforms in education now appears far more formidable than ever before. We- have become increasingly conscious of the com- plex elements involved. Attempts to change human behaviour by ad- ministrative fiat or high sounding exhortation, we have steadily come to realize, commonly produce little effect. A greater degree of success in learning does not seem likely to result from simple formulas and ready-made solutions. Administra- tors and others planning to imple- ment new approaches need, there- fore, to anticipate the problems and obstacles involved.
On 25 August Mr B. Rechter, chief research officer Test Development at ACER, left on a visit to the United States, Canada, and the United King- dom. He will look at the situation in these countries concerning the trans- ition from secondary to tertiary edu- cation, including the selection and guidance of students, and problems of educational measurement and ev- aluation. He will also visit Hungary, representing Australia at the Council meeting of the International Associ- ation for the Evaluation of Education- al Achievement.
En route Mr Rechter will visit the University of the South Pacific and the Department of Education in Fiji, to follow up last year's discussions on selection.
UNDERSTANDING
Factors in Educational Change, due to be published by ACER late in 1972, will do something to explain the nature of response to change within Australian education. At a time of much doubt and confusion, policy-makers will gain a better un- derstanding of the pressures which are coming to bear from various quarters.
ACER Newsletter No 10: September 1971
