The move to NAPLAN online: The advantages and the road ahead

The task of developing and delivering the National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) online presents enormous challenges. Nonetheless, the benefits of taking this on are well worth the efforts. With a tailored test design, NAPLAN online will provide a better measure of the Australian Curriculum, more precise results and a significantly faster turnaround of those results. NAPLAN will begin its delivery online in 2017, with an opt-in period until 2019. To ensure readiness, a large amount of research is being conducted through the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority to inform the development process. This presentation will address the advantages of moving online, as well as outline several key research studies to be conducted prior to the test’s implementation, including:
• a trialling study to ensure all item types (traditional and innovative) work in the online environment
• a device-effect study to ensure no disadvantage
to students regardless of whether they use laptops or tablets
• a fonts and readability study, to ensure the best layout for reading test (passages and items)
• an accessibility study to ensure the test is fair for all students, including students with disabilities, students in remote areas, and so on
• an autoscoring study, to demonstrate that computers can score NAPLAN writing as well as teachers.