On ICT Literacy in Australia (National Assessment Program)

Australia has an information and communication technology literacy assessment. Started in 2005 (run again in 2008 and 2011), the assessment looks at a student’s capabilities in Year 6 and Year 10 (approx age 12 and 16). In 2011 5,500 students per age category were chosen at random, representing 649 schools. The 2014 assessment will take place between October and November this year. The 2011 report is available here.

Background:

The assessment defines ICT literacy as: “the ability of individuals to use ICT appropriately to access, manage, integrate and evaluate information, develop new understandings, and communicate with others in order to participate effectively in society” – the 2011 report pointedly notes “ICT literacy has not focused on programming but on computer use”. The assessment included seven main activities covering topics such as installing software, managing an anti virus, web based research on topics, creating a video about a topic, updating a wiki entry, working with collaborative software,  using email and organising an event using online tools.

The Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) has released a couple of statements over the years that give insight into their acceptable levels of ICT literacy (my emphasis and underlining):

When students leave school they should be “confident, creative and productive users of new technologies, particularly information and communication technologies, and understand the impact of those technologies on society”. – Adelaide Declaration on Australia’s National Goals for Schooling, 1999

Successful learners “have the essential skills in literacy and numeracy and are creative and productive users of technology, especially ICT, as a foundation for success in all learning areas”. – Goal 2, Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, 2008

Assessment outcomes (2011): 

  • 62% of Year 6 students reached or exceeded “proficient standard” (49% in 2005 and 57% in 2008)
  • 65% of Year 10 students reached or exceeded “proficient standard” (61% in 2005)
  • Children of parents working in “unskilled, manual and sales jobs” were less proficient than those in “senior manager and professional” jobs – Year 6 (50% v 79%) and Year 10 (57% v 78%) students
  • Children of Indigenous parents were less proficient than those of non-Indigenous – Year 6 (31% v 64%) and Year 10 (36% v 66%)
  • Regionally ACT is streaks ahead of the other states/territories in terms of student proficiency
  • ACT, Victoria and NSW were generally more proficient than WA, Qld, Tasmania and NT
  • Tasmania and Northern Territory were the only two regions to NOT show an increase in proficiency from 2005 to 2011
  • Queensland showed the greatest proficiency difference between Year 6 (55%) and Year 10 (63%) students

Student perceptions of Using ICT:

Students indicated a high level of interest and enjoyment in using computers. Males recorded higher levels of interest than females and Year 6 students expressed greater interest in using ICT than Year 10 students. Year 6 and Year 10 students showed themselves confident that they could easily download music from the internet, upload files to a website and create a multi-media presentation (with sound, pictures, video). They were less confident about their ability to construct a web page or create a database. There were no differences between males and females in terms of confidence in using ICT, but there were significant differences between Year 6 and Year 10: Year 10 students expressed higher levels of confidence in using ICT than Year 6 students. [Excerpt]

Gender in ICT:

Females recorded higher levels of ICT Literacy than males. Even though female students expressed lower levels of interest and enjoyment than males in computing, they expressed similar levels of confidence in their ability to carry out ICT-based tasks without assistance. [Excerpt]

My thoughts:

You can see I have underlined the assessment’s emphasis on “using technology”. So much of what I do and what I read is about the need to shift mentalities away from ‘using’ and into ‘creating/making’. I see the purpose of measuring base level proficiency – particularly when there are circumstances where children of some families (unskilled labour) score between 20-30% less than those of whose parents are managers and professionals. In that context, it sounds like there are some base level needs that should be addressed before we start concentrating on  training up armies of computer scientists capable of creating a generation of high growth tech jobs for Australia’s future economy.

I wrote this post to raise a couple of points:

  • Australia does have a digital literacy assessment that is tracking proficiency over time
  • There are wide variations in proficiency based on geography, parental backgrounds and whether you are from a minority or marginalised group
  • The current assessment focuses on basic use of technology to perform everyday tasks – not coding or more advanced computer science concepts
  • … in the future, hopefully after the uptake of the new Digital Technologies Curriculum, it should start addressing these areas