Critical or troublesome? All you need to know about Naplan and its impact

More than a million students are just one sleep away from sitting this year’s Naplan tests – an event loved by statisticians and loathed by many education experts.

From Wednesday 13 March, testing will begin for all Australian students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9. The testing will run over two weeks at more than 9,400 schools across the country.

Here’s what you need to know.

What is Naplan?

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (Naplan) tests students on their reading, numeracy, spelling, grammar and punctuation.

It’s Australia’s largest nationwide standardised test, established in 2008 to help governments, education authorities and schools determine whether students are meeting performance targets.

Related: Naplan tests are vital: here are five reasons why | Peter Goss

On an individual level, the tests are also meant to help teachers tailor their classes according to the strengths and weaknesses of their students and give parents information on how their child is progressing.

More than 2,500 questions have been set this year, testing skills taught in previous years of schooling.

What’s new in 2024?

Schools will receive individual results earlier than ever this year, in a bid by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (Acara) to help teachers implement findings as soon as possible.

Under the changes, preliminary results in all domains except writing (which takes longer to mark) will be accessible in early term 2, about four weeks after the testing period ends on 25 March.

That’s eight weeks earlier than last year and a term earlier than previous years after education ministers agreed to move testing to term 1. Parents and carers will receive their child’s results at the start of term 3, with national results to follow in August.

Stephen Gniel, the acting Acara chief executive, said getting the results sooner was a “key benefit” of moving the assessment from May to March and moving the tests completely online.

What did the latest results show?

Last year’s Naplan results found one in 10 students were not meeting standards in literacy and numeracy and students with high levels of socioeconomic disadvantage were even less likely to be keeping up.

The 2023 Naplan test was the first held with tougher proficiency levels and a new measurement scale, which experts said could have contributed to the poor results.

The “time series” dataset was also fully reset with the new testing methods, meaning results couldn’t be compared with previous years.

This year’s results will be comparable, with education experts likely to take a keen interest in whether the 33% of students in the “needs additional support” and “developing” categories have caught up.

Are we too focused on Naplan?

Naplan has been criticised for placing undue pressure on students and schools, which is exacerbated by media hyping up top performers and pointing the finger over poor results.

Australian Catholic University research released last year suggested Naplan had “strayed from its original purpose” of identifying struggling students by “insidiously infiltrating everyday teaching and learning practices”.

Related: Could you pass a year 9 Naplan test? Take our quiz to find out

The study’s lead researcher, Dr Rafaan Daliri-Ngametua, said the test had become so embedded in school-level decision making that it was undermining student learning.

Teachers interviewed for the research said their programs were now aligned with Naplan testing topics, while staffing decisions were also determined by who was best suited to Naplan’s testing years.

“When performance and policy decisions are dictated by a narrow measure such as Naplan scores, it severely inhibits the capacity for educators to do things differently,” Daliri-Ngametua said.

“Naplan has become a dictating force in curriculum development, teaching priorities and resource allocation, making it a troublesome and influential policy driver.”

How should results be interpreted?

ACU professor of educational assessment and measurement Claire Wyatt-Smith said what governments and schools were deciding to do with Naplan results was the “critical part” – more so than the outcome itself.

“The results reflect a point in time on any given day,” she said. “It doesn’t give adjustments or advise how to direct learning.

“Tracking a student over time alone is insufficient, but as part of a larger picture, it’s critical.”

Wyatt-Smith said there was no need for parents to get tutors or place stress on children undertaking the assessments. Instead, they should remember the point of the tests – to inform schools and teachers about where learning could be improved.

Gniel said Naplan was an important measure, but needed to be kept in perspective as “one assessment tool” that supplemented school assessments and teacher knowledge.

“There’s no need for students to undertake extra practice for Naplan and they should not feel apprehensive about the assessment,” he said.