The Statistical Literacy Needed to Interpret School Assessment Data.

Abstract

State-wide and national testing in areas such as literacy and numeracy producesreports containing graphs and tables illustrating school and individual performance.These are intended to inform teachers, principals, and education organisations aboutstudent and school outcomes, to guide change and improvement. Given thecomplexity of the information, it is of interest to determine the critical statistical skillsrequired to make sense of such data. This paper examines the statistical literacynecessary to interpret the graphical presentations of school assessment data for theAustralian NAPLAN testing process. A framework for professional statistical literacythat acknowledges the importance of context is used to identify different levels ofdata interpretation. The implications for helping users make better use of such dataand for teacher education more broadly are discussed.