This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The Naplan writing test is “bizarre” and rewards students for using big words rather than clear expression, an international education expert has said.

In a report commissioned by the New South Wales Teachers Federation, Les Perelman, a retired professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found the test placed too much emphasis on spelling, punctuation, grammar and paragraphing at the expense of “higher order writing skills”.

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The ABC reported that the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority had promised to take the feedback on board as it conducts a review of the writing test taken by students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9.

Perelman said of the 10 to 12 international tests he had examined that Australia’s Naplan writing test was “by far the most absurd and the least valid of any test”. “The marking criteria in general I can only describe as bizarre,” he told the ABC. “When I first examined it, I just couldn’t believe it. It’s measuring all the wrong things … It rewards using big words.”

Markers of the Naplan test are given lists of words categorised as “simple”, “common”, “difficult” and “challenging”. Giving higher marks to more complex words can reward students for using words such as “demonstrate” instead of the simpler “show”.

“There should be no word lists,” Perelman reportedly said. “Students should use the best word to convey meaning.” He noted that it was widely accepted in English style guides that “one should use the simplest, most precise language wherever possible”.

Perelman suggested the test could be gamed by memorising a list of challenging words and “sprinkling them throughout the paper”. He also advised students taking the test to always use adjectives to modify nouns, and to use connective words and phrases such as “moreover” and “on the other hand”.

But he said they should “never write like this except for essay tests like the Naplan”.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority’s chief executive, Robert Randall, told the ABC the assessment authority would “take Dr Perelman’s advice on board” but disputed the idea that children were using unnecessarily complicated words to game the test.

“We want good plain English,” he reportedly said. “But what we know is teachers are focused on building and expanding the vocabulary of young people and getting them to use that in meaningful, constructive ways.

“I accept his challenge, I don’t accept his conclusion. He’s posing a question and I think it warrants further examination.”

Perelman’s other criticisms of the Naplan test included that there was a “complete lack of transparency” in the development of grading criteria and the test did not assess informational writing.

The federal education minister, Simon Birmingham, told ABC News Breakfast he “certainly expects” that the curriculum authority would examine the criticism closely “but it should be put into some perspective”.

“[The writing test] does not sit in isolation – it sits alongside a separate literacy test, as well as a separate numeracy test,” he said. “And equally we should keep Naplan itself in perspective … Naplan is but one assessment regime that teachers in school can use out of many.

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“It’s only a few hours, a few times during the life of a student and ultimately I know that teachers across the country use many other assessment tools to chart the progress of their students.”

The NSW Teachers Federation is a consistent critic of the Naplan test, which it believes encourages teachers to “teach to the test” and results in simplistic comparisons between schools’ results – including the MySchool website.

The federation’s president, Maurie Mulheron, reportedly told the Australian that the test was “unsophisticated, expensive and imprecise” and had been “devised by politicians who deliberately set out to exploit ­parents’ concerns and fears about schooling”.

In January the Finnish education expert Pasi Sahlberg told Guardian Australia there is “nothing wrong with the test itself” but where standardised testing was “high-stakes” it “narrows the curriculum”.

Australia could “probably do with less standardised testing”, he said, and Naplan could be changed to a sample-based rather than a census test.