Online NAPLAN tests that become progressively more or less difficult depending on how many answers students get right yield more precise results and lead to greater student engagement, a major trial has found.
The tailored tests, which will be adopted when the national assessments move online over the next few years, were found to be especially beneficial for the highest and lowest performing students, who previously may have been unchallenged by easy questions or felt deflated and given up when questions became too difficult.
The tests work by asking all students the same questions at the beginning, but then directing those performing strongly to more difficult questions, and those who are struggling to easier questions.
The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, which administers the tests, the tested new format in more than 250 schools last year with more than 4000 students.
The research, funded by the federal government, found the model was sound and feasible.
"For some kids, traditional testing measures what they don't know. In this environment, we're able to measure what they do know," ACARA's general manager, assessment and reporting, Dr Stanley Rabinowitz, said.
In Year 5 reading, for example, 50 per cent of students were routed to the mainstream questions, 23 per cent reached the most challenging questions and 27 per cent finished at the easiest questions.
"This means 50 per cent of the kids ended up getting a test that was better suited to their achievement level," Dr Rabinowitz said. "You are getting half the population better measured through this approach."
It is still unclear when NAPLAN will move online but ACARA is hoping for 2017.
Students who participated in the trial reported feeling positive and accomplished and were not affected by the shifting level of difficulty throughout the test. The tailored format can also reduce anxiety and boost self-esteem because students are not discouraged by increasingly complex tasks.
"Students were not fussed about the fact that items were changing difficulty up or down and most of the students we asked were not aware that the test had become easier or harder," Dr Goran Lazendic, ACARA's senior manager, measurement and research, said.
Under the new model, some students would achieve a higher score than their peers despite having answered fewer questions correctly because their test was more difficult.
The deputy president of the NSW Secondary Principals' Council, Chris Presland, said any change that would improve the capacity to diagnose students' areas of need and areas of strength would be welcomed.
"There are some students who, for a raft of reasons, really struggle to come to terms with what the test is asking of them," he said. "So anything that allows for a more creative and diverse assessment of what kids can do would be welcomed."
Further down the track NAPLAN will become even more flexible, with students sitting the tests at different times of the year.
"Right now we test when we're ready and students have to be ready that day or that week," Dr Rabinowitz said. "In an online administration, we can test when the student is ready, earlier or later, depending on each student's achievement level and progress throughout the school year."
Future exams would also include technologically enhanced questions, currently being trialled, which might ask students to edit texts, shade graphs or shift angles.
Students would wear headphones during spelling tests, allowing them to listen to the words they are asked to spell.
