Selective school tests go digital in biggest shake-up in 30 years

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Selective school tests go digital in biggest shake-up in 30 years

By Jordan Baker

Selective school entry exams will move online in their biggest overhaul in decades, with the job of writing and delivery changing hands for the first time since the tests began more than 30 years ago.

In a move that has shaken the private coaching industry, the opportunity class and selective school contract was stripped from the longtime local provider by British company Cambridge Assessment in a $5.5 million, five-year deal that includes providing digital tests.

The selective school entry test will go digital as part of its biggest change in 30 years.

The selective school entry test will go digital as part of its biggest change in 30 years. Credit: Marina Neil

The opportunity class test, sat by year 4 students, will be online from next year, and the selective high school test sat in year 6 will go online in 2022.

"It is the intention to process and deliver results earlier," a spokesman for the NSW Department of Education said.

Cambridge Assessment, founded by the university, will now write its own version of the test but will subcontract delivery to Australian digital assessment specialist Janison, which already provides an online platform for Best Start Year 7 and VALID science tests for the department.

The decision comes after a 2018 department review found the selective school entrance exams were too easy, favouring students who had done lots of practice tests and making it hard to differentiate between bright and very bright students.

The selective school tests have been run by the Australian Council for Educational Research since they began in 1988. This council dominates the local assessment market and runs scholarship tests for schools such as The Scots College and Shore.

As competition for spots in selective schools has increased, a coaching industry has flourished, promising to prepare students for the entrance exams. Tutoring colleges invested heavily in developing practice tests based on students' recollections of the real tests, which are not released.

In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange upon winning the contract in May, Janison said it would help Cambridge deliver tests "which will be run digitally for the very first time".

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"Digital question types will allow the examiners to set more intricate difficulty levels, which better benchmark a broader range of skills among high-performing students."

Its platform allowed for a "seamless" test regardless of a school's connectivity, and could incorporate "state of the art assessment strategies," as well as deeper analysis of results, the company's statement said.

Gifted education expert Rosalind Walsh said digital tests had advantages, such as the capacity to include animation, videos and graphics in questions. "You can move well beyond five multiple-choice answers," she said.

It made the test easier to adapt for children with disabilities, and could also help students catch mistakes, such as "when you're copying the book onto your answer sheet, and your questions get out of sync," she said.

From a research perspective, digital tests could provide information such as whether students were guessing – they answer questions quickly – hover on the correct answer then choose the wrong one, or get stuck on certain types of questions.

But Dr Walsh said it was difficult to tell whether the new test would be significantly different from the old one. "There are things that will probably stay the same, because they are the way we have been measuring general ability for a very long time," she said.

Tarun Khanna, who runs a website selling practice tests, said the industry would be taken by surprise by the changes.

"The first thing [parents are] going to do is call me and ask if I'm on board, and I'll say not really, because we don't know what's coming," he said. "It shouldn't hurt me too much, but it will definitely hurt some of [the tutoring colleges]."

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The head of another companysaid he had noticed changes in the test since the 2018 review, such as fewer maths questions in the general ability assessment.

Head of the Secondary Principals Council Craig Petersen said many assessments were moving online. However, he hoped the department could ensure equity of access to technology so some students were not advantaged by having better quality equipment.

About 14000 students sat the 2020 selective school tests in March. This year's opportunity class tests have been delayed until September.

The 2018 review found the selective school test was too easy. "High scores could be achieved by correctly answering moderately difficult questions with great consistency - which can result from preparation and practice," the review found.

"This makes it difficult to differentiate between students of very high ability (who would be able to answer correctly questions of higher difficulty) and those with high ability who are proficient at test taking."

Angelo Gavrielatos, president of the NSW Teachers Federation, said he was concerned at the growth of private education businesses.

"This is another example of the department outsourcing its function with and entering into opaque contracts," he said.

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