By Jaimi D'Aquino

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EPT429 Research Summary
Jaimi D’Aquino

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This research aims to understand why
there is a gap in literacy levels between
Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.
Through creating a questionnaire as a
means of data collection, this research
aims to shed light on the opinions of
industry professionals as to why this gap
exists.
Aim of this research
This research also aims to understand the
Government funding schemes that have
been put into place within schools and
also how teachers believe they can better
their pedagogical practices.

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Introduction to the
issue
From my personal experience of working with Indigenous
students, I am well aware of the differences in literacy scores
when compared to non-Indigenous peers. Many teachers will
argue that there is not enough funding available to schools to
assist with the education of Indigenous students. To help
bridge the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous
students, the Commonwealth Government committed $56.4
million in 2008-2009 to support schools over four years under
the Closing the Gap – Expansion of Intensive Literacy and
Numeracy Programs for Underachieving Indigenous Students
and Individual Learning Plans (Department of Education and
Communities, 2013, p. 35). Under educational law, all
Indigenous students are required to have their teacher and
school complete an Individual Learning Plan (ILP). This was
one step towards attempting to help Indigenous students and
their teachers recognise the student’s educational needs.
One of the two funding components directly relates to primaryaged Indigenous students and states that ‘The Expansion and
Intensive Literacy and Numeracy Programs for Underachieving
Indigenous Students component will provide extra help for
schools, enabling them to expand intensive literacy and
numeracy approaches’ (Department of Education and
Communities, 2013, p. 35). The objectives of this funding
scheme include notions of ‘innovative literacy…projects which
will contribute to a national menu of best practice and trialing
and evaluation of structured approaches to teaching literacy…
to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students’ (Department
of Education and Communities, 2013, p. 36). These funding
measures are all well and good if students are benefiting from
them, but it begs the question, if schools are receiving
allocated funding to help Indigenous students engage in
learning literacy concepts, then why are students still so far
behind the national averages for literacy? This is one of the
main questions that my project aims to clarify.

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Rationale
From experience through practicums and also
through working as a Teacher's Aide, I have noticed a
large gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous
students' literacy levels. I have always wondered why
this gap exists when it can be argued that Australia
has a strong education system. I strongly believe that
the literacy levels of Indigenous children is an issue
that needs to be addressed. This research aimed to
shed light on the perspectives of industry
professionals to gauge what their knowledge of the
problem is and suggest ways to help bridge this gap
in their classrooms.
When comparing the NAPLAN results over the last
five years, 2008 - 2013, the results in year 3 reading is
alarming. Over the five year period, the proportion of
Indigenous students who received a band one result
only decreased by 6.6%. Likewise, in the 2013 results
show that nationally, 15.8% of Indigenous students
only achieved a band one result, compared to 2% of
non-Indigenous students. These low NAPLAN results
are an indication of the need to bridge the gap in
literacy education to ensure that the reading levels of
our year 3 Indigenous students increases and is
closer in score to non-Indigenous students. These
results are a direct link to why this topic is extremely
important and show the urgency that is needed to
improve these results.

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Research Questions
As mentioned, this research aimed to
understand industry professional's opinions
in regards to the gap in literacy education
between Indigenous and non-Indigenous
students, as well as understanding whether
they believe that their teacher training is
flexible enough to teach Indigenous
students in a manner that they feel
comfortable and willing to learn.
In the questionnaire there were seven
questions, ranging from questions that
required a large answer to those that were
needing answers based on a rating scale
(strongly disagree - strongly agree). The
questionnaire aimed to be short and concise
so as to gain the information needed without
having to analyse pages and pages of data.
Having a short questionnaire also helped
with allowing the respondents the chance to
quickly complete the questionnaire without
contemplating the questions for an
extended period of time.

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Methodology
Site
The questionnaire was completed and
sent via email. This is due to the fact that
schools and many literacy organisations
were closed over the Christmas/New Year
holidays. By allowing the respondents to
complete the interactive PDF through
email, they
could
complete
the
questionnaire in their own time, as many
were busy preparing for a new school
year.
Participants
The
participants
included
school
teachers, ACARA workers, industry
professionals and teacher's aides. By
having a range of different careers, I was
able to gain a range of opinions into the
topic.

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Data Collection
This research project proved to be a real
challenge to get the information required. Online
questionnaires were the easiest and quickest way
for me to gain the information needed. This data
collection was a major issue as many businesses
and all schools were closed over the duration of
the project so gaining respondents was difficult at
times.
The questionnaire was created to be flexible, with
the majority of questions requiring a long
response and some using a scale to determine the
answer (strongly disagree - strongly agree). This
allowed me to gain an understanding into the
opinions of the respondents in terms of the topic.
My project followed a naturalistic form of inquiry,
whereby 'theory is an outcome of the research'
and 'seeks to understand events and behaviours;
constructs detailed descriptions of events and
behaviours and; findings are setting and person
specific' (Fletcher, 2013, slides 4 & 8). I was able to
gain subjective views from the respondents which
allows me to gain first-hand understanding of their
knowledge about the subject. Because this project
was based around opinions and ways of best
practice, it made sense for me to utilise the
method of a questionnaire as a means of data
collection.

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Overall Results

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Questions 1 and 1a
Have you had any experience working with Indigenous students?
(Yes or no response). If yes, what is your experience?
83%
of respondents indicated that they had worked with
Indigenous students, all of which were classroom teachers
One
respondent commented that they had worked with
programs such as Reading Recovery and also implemented
programs such as activities during NAIDOC Week, the
Aboriginal Recognition Parade and Indigenous sports
carnivals

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Question 2
What is your understanding of the NAPLAN assessment system?
All
respondents indicated that NAPLAN is a National
assessment program that indicates a students literacy and
numeracy level.
Some
respondents also commented that the NAPLAN
assessment system has no direct consequence for the student
as an individual

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Questions 3 and 3a
Do you see the NAPLAN assessment system as a fair indicator of a
student’s academic level? (rating scale from strongly disagree to
strongly agree). Please explain your answer.
Those who answered either disagree or strongly disagree gave the following reasons for their
answers:
‘NAPLAN is simply 1 test on 1 day of the year. There are many variables that could effect the
students ability on that specific day e.g. no breakfast, late night, sick, family drama’
‘Students don’t respond well under pressure and may suffer from anxiety due to this test’
Those who answered neutral gave the following reasons for their answers:
‘…gives a good indication of literacy and numeracy skills, which is foundational to other
academic achievement and learning in schooling’

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Question 4
What is your understanding of the Government-based funding
allocated to schools to help Indigenous students with literacy?
Most
respondents understood that there is funding given to
schools to assist with Indigenous literacy learning, however only
one respondent could name programs that are used in schools –
Norta Norta and Schools in Partnership
Other
respondents commented that programs such as Mini-Lit
and Multi-Lit aim to also help students with literacy but are not
specifically for Indigenous students
One
respondent commented that their understanding of the
funding is based on ‘the number of Indigenous students at that
school. It is then up to the school to decide what programs they
will use and spend the money on to help improve literacy skills
with these students’

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Questions 5 and 5a
Have you experienced any literacy programs that have helped to
close the gap in literacy education? (yes or no response). If so,
what are these programs and how have they helped?
83%
of respondents have experienced literacy programs that
are helping to close the gap for Indigenous literacy levels. Of
this, 80% mentioned that the Multi-Lit and Mini-Lit programs
have been utilised in the schools they work in
Two
respondents commented that with consistent sessions
and monitoring, these programs have been very beneficial to
the students involved
One
respondent mentioned four other programs that they
have had experience in – Reading Recovery, Effective Reading
Program, Reading to Learn and L3.

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Questions 6 and 6a
Teachers are given enough/adequate opportunities to further their own
knowledge and skills in order to help Indigenous students to succeed in learning
literacy concepts.
To what extent do you agree with the above statement (rating scale from strongly
disagree to strongly agree)? Please explain your answer.



Those who agreed with the statement, stated that they believed that teachers were given the
training needed
through staff development days and the opportunity to further their studies and one said it
‘depends if you want to look and use it’
Those who were neutral to the statement stated that ‘teachers are encouraged to further
develop our skills in all areas but are sometimes hampered by funding and time restraints’,
‘depends on level of professional learning provided and support of school leadership team,
likely to vary considerably by school’
Those who disagreed said that there was little training for this area

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Question 7
Do you think the current pedagogies of our teachers needs to be changed in
order to accommodate Indigenous learning needs? Please explain your
answer.
Three
respondents stated that the current pedagogies do not need to be
changed, and one commented that they were not sure
One
respondent commented that all teachers are ‘meeting the needs of
all students within our means’ and that the main concern is funding and
resources. They went on to comment that ‘educators are only one link in
the chain – we can’t do it on our own. Parents, guardians, the community
and the Government must also actively participate and acknowledge the
importance of every student’s educations and provide the necessary
means to achieve rich learning experiences for every student’
Another
respondent commented that ‘ I believe that a true teacher who
has had experiences with Indigenous students in their class create a
mutual understanding with the student’s needs. This means you create a
relationship whereby you speak to your student in the manner he/she
understands’

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Challenges
There were many challenges throughout this
research project. These were mainly the
holiday period for both businesses and
schools. This made it near impossible to find
participants for the research. If I were to
complete this research again, it definitely
would
not
take
place
over
the
Christmas/New Year/School holidays.
Strengths
Reflection
This project allowed me the opportunity to
gain an insight into the understanding of this
issue through the eyes of industry
professionals. This is a valuable experience
that has allowed me to shape and change
my own opinions about the topic.
Even though I found it difficult to find
participants to partake in the research, the
people I did find were incredibly
forthcoming with their answers and really
helped me to complete my assignment in a
short period of time.

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This research could be used by principals
to evaluate their school's Indigenous
literacy projects, based on their own
staff's opinions.
What’s Next?
This study could also be expanded to
include the opinion of Indigenous
students' on their own literacy levels and
their views on their classroom teacher's
practices. By including students, the study
could be more beneficial to policy
makers as it would allow the insight from
a student's perspective, which is always
extremely important.

18. +
Because of the nature of the
data collection, there was not a
lot of feedback.
Feedback
The feedback I did receive
however, was mainly that the
questionnaire was easy to use.

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From this research, I have gained a
tremendous amount of understanding
about the opinions of educational
professionals.
I have learnt that there is still a long way
to go with regards to teacher’s
understandings of certain aspects of
Indigenous education, especially the
funding of programs to help bridge the
gap between Indigenous and nonIndigenous students.
Conclusions
I have also learnt that of the respondents
from this questionnaire, most are not in
favour of the NAPLAN assessment system,
as they believe that it is not a fair and
accurate representation of a student’s
academic knowledge. It also cemented
my own opinions of the NAPLAN
assessment system and shed light on the
idea that students have different learning
styles and the NAPLAN assessment
system does not cater for these.

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Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority
(a). (2008). 2008 National Assessment Program: Literacy and
Numeracy

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority
(b). (2009). 2009 National Assessment Program: Literacy and
Numeracy

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority
(c). (2010). 2010 Nationa Assessment Program: Literacy and
Numeracy

References

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority
(d). (2011). 2011 National Assessment Program: Literacy and
Numeracy

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority
(e). (2012). 2012 National Assessment Program: Literacy and
Numeracy

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority
(f). (2013). 2013 National Assessment Program: Literacy and
Numeracy

Department of Education and Communities. (2013).
Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000:
Program Guidelines 2009 to 2013. Retrieved from
http://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/ietaprogram-guidelines-2009-2013.pdf

Fletcher, A. (2013). Planning the approach [powerpoint
slides]. Retrieved from the CSU EPT429 Interact site