Contesting and capitalising on standardised national testing: An Australian perspective

Author(s):

Ian Hardy(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

23 SES 01 A, Policies of Standardization in Education

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-02

13:15-14:45

Room:

B331 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Anne Larson

Contribution

This paper presents a case study of the complexity and contestation which characterises standaridsed national testing in Australia. The research draws upon teachers and principals’ perspectives on the nature and effects of the National Assessment Program: Literacy and Numeray (NAPLAN) in one school located in a predominantly lower socio-economic community, in northern Queensland, Australia. This data is grounded in relevant international literature, including in European contexts, about the nature, effects and approaches to standardised national testing. Informed by the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, the research reveals how NAPLAN has been taken up and lived in multiple ways within the ‘field of schooling practices’ – a site of contestation characterized by varying levels of support, acceptance, acquiescence, and concern about the nature and effects of NAPLAN. The research reveals how principals and teachers are actively disposed to NAPLAN, including how NAPLAN has become a particularly valued capital, significantly influencing the allocation of resources within schools, and teachers’ planning and teaching practices. However, and at the same time, there is also evidence of teachers seeking to resist the more pejorative effects of NAPLAN, even as they sometimes engage in practices which ensure the continued influence of some of the more reductive effects of the test. In this way, the field of schooling practices is a site of ‘capitalising’ and ‘contesting’ NAPLAN, and these competing pressures are reflected in the logics which characterize the field.

Method

To make sense of how NAPLAN influences schooling practices at a specific school site, and after Yin (2009), the chapter draws upon a case study-in-context approach to understanding teachers and principals’ responses to this testing regime; this includes drawing upon relevant theorizing to help make sense of the practices in question. Yin’s (2009) approach is useful for foregrounding the significance of understanding the particular phenomenon under investigation and its context/circumstances ‘especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident’ (p. 18). Such an approach resonates strongly with Bourdieu’s sociology with its emphasis upon the inherently recursive nature of specific practices and the broader social conditions within which they are enacted. The research draws upon Bourdieu's concepts, particularly his notions of 'field', 'habitus', and 'capital' to make sense of the varied responses of teachers and administrators within the school to national standardised testing practices. The data is based upon a series of interviews with 24 members of the teaching and administrative staff, undertaken at the school site. Each interview was approximately 30-60 minutes, and was semi-structured in nature. Questions related to teachers’ practices, perspectives and learnings in the context of significant national, state and school-based educational reforms and policies, including NAPLAN. It was readily apparent that NAPLAN was a key area of attention. In keeping with Bourdieu’s calls for an increasingly reflexive approach to social research, the research is also presented in the understanding that it is necessarily a product of a particular research process, and the attendant conditions and circumstances – the scholarly disposition (Bourdieu, 1998b). The claims are presented cognizant of Bourdieu’s (1999) call to reject what he describes as ‘epistemological innocence’, that all research is necessarily an act of construction, and that recognizing it is as such, and seeking to better understand the nature of this construction and subsequent effects, is intrinsic to all good research (p. 608).

Expected Outcomes

The research reveals that discourses around national testing have become incorporated into the teaching habitus, reflective in the sometimes expansive accounts teachers and principals gave of the nature of their work around NAPLAN, including varying degrees of support and opposition to the testing regime. From the outset, the capitals which appeared to be most valued were improved NAPLAN results. Furthermore, it was to be through ongoing processes of comparison with rates of improvement in the state as a whole (and nationally) that it was possible to ascertain whether adequate progress was being made. Such processes of comparison have become an increasingly dominant logic within schooling settings (Lingard & Rawolle, 2011), and have acted as technologies of governance deployed to ensure schools are responding appropriately to pressures for improved results as a whole (Ozga, 2009). Such processes are reflective of a broader logic of practice dominated by concerns about accountability and meeting targets, and which equate educational quality with ever increasing results on standardized tests. A habitus responsive to such demands was clearly in evidence as the principal and teachers ‘talked up’ the successes achieved in the test – ‘capitalizing on NAPLAN’. However, while teachers were disposed to NAPLAN, a habitus was also evident which was influenced by considerable reflection upon the negative effects of the test. At the same time as there was a strong focus upon testing practices and processes, there was also some recognition of the shortcomings of such tests, particularly for informing ongoing teaching practices. The way in which some teachers reflected upon how the test was of limited value for informing everyday teaching, and that the data of most value to teachers was the feedback provided by students about their learning on an ongoing basis, reveals how educative logics could challenge performative logics, at least discursively.

References

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Author Information

Ian Hardy (presenting / submitting)

University of Queensland

Education

Brisbane

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