FACULTY FOCUS
campusreview.com.au
Review with their own concerns about
the test.
One of them was Ashley Bruce, who
suffers from epilepsy and has difficulty
retaining information quickly. Bruce’s
epilepsy affects the memory functioning
part of her brain, meaning she takes longer
to digest information.
“I was granted only 20 extra minutes [to
complete the test],” she said. “How is this
catering for diversity?
“Student incomes, or lack thereof,
especially at the time I took [the test], which
was mid-placement, aren’t catered for.”
Another key issue for Bruce is how
the test has affected students who
entered a teaching degree prior to the
implementation of the LANTITE, and the
money spent on tutoring and the test itself.
She also highlighted discrepancies
between jurisdictions relating to the
mandatory status of the test and when it is
administered, and the fact that it does not
assess a teacher’s ability to teach.
Bruce, who is an administrator of a
Facebook group dedicated to the LANTITE,
was also shocked by the effect the test has
had on other students’ lives.
“I was mortified and brought to tears
by some of the members’ stories,” she
said. “Loss of homes, marriage or de
facto relationship breakdowns, severe
mental health issues (depression, anxiety
and PTSD), and even one student being
hospitalised due to the impact the LANTITE
had on them.”
Another teaching student, Britney
Mathers,* said students at her university
who enrolled prior to the LANTITE’s
introduction were provided with “no
support whatsoever”.
She also wondered why certain “red
flags” weren’t picked up by her university
regarding the inevitable LANTITE test.
Mathers, like other teaching students who
contacted Campus Review, also highlighted
that the LANTITE isn’t creating “classroom-
ready teachers, but merely people who do
well in an exam”.
Shane Jefferson* also contacted Campus
Review with concerns about the LANTITE.
For him, it’s irrelevant whether the test is
conducted before or during a teaching
degree. He claims there are hundreds
of students who are unable to graduate
because of a few “useless LANTITE tests”.
“I believe that [student] teachers should
be refunded for the whole course if they are
unable to teach,” he said.
“Furthermore, think about the time and
commitment that thousands of pre-service
teachers have expended over the last two
or four years of the course.”
Like other teaching students who
contacted Campus Review, Jefferson
criticised the importance placed on the test,
arguing that “we don’t judge a student’s
potential on one test score, but this is what
is happening to incoming teachers across
the country”.
Kyle Smith, who is writing a thesis about
language assessment, holds different
concerns about the LANTITE. For the last
12 months, Smith has been learning about
the LANTITE test and helping students
prepare for it.
Smith’s key concern with the test is “that
the Australian public has had to assume
that the LANTITE is a valid, reliable and fair
test”, he says.
“However, contrary to ‘standard practice’
in educational testing, neither ACER nor the
Australian Department of Education have
made any such argument publicly, nor have
they released the documentation or data
that support such an argument.”
Smith emphasises that such data and
documentation exits, but that it hasn’t been
released for people to make a judgement.
Smith, who has spent 18 years practising
reading tests and teaching grammar, took
the practice test himself, scoring 60 out of
65 in the literacy component.
Based on his and others’ experience of
the test, as well as his knowledge of testing,
he identified a number of factors that are
likely to affect individual scores.
Professor Greg Craven. Photo: Supplied
These include background knowledge,
boredom/frustration, variable quality of
test items (that is, some questions or items
being poorly written) and the behaviour of
a remote proctor (invigilator) for students
completing their tests remotely.
Smith also agrees that making the
LANTITE an entry exam could make the
situation worse, as universities would not
be able to provide support until students
attend the institutions.
This, he says, would further widen the
equity gap.
However, according to the latest full set
of data available, the pass rates for both the
We don’t judge a student’s
potential on one test score,
but this is what is happening to
incoming teachers.
literacy and numeracy components of the
LANTITE are quite high.
Universities Australia CEO Catriona
Jackson said: “In 2018, which is the last year
for which we have full data, 90 per cent
of ITE (Initial Teacher Education) students
met the standard in the literacy part of the
test, and the same proportion met the
numeracy standard.”
She went on to say that “the LANTITE test
assesses whether someone is in the top 30
per cent of the adult population for literacy
and numeracy”.
The education department, which
contracts ACER to conduct the test, said
the LANTITE “is not intended to be a broad
measure of the ability to teach”.
“[Its function is to provide] a nationally
consistent way to demonstrate that
students have met the minimum standard
of personal literacy and numeracy expected
of a prospective teacher.
“Strong personal, literacy and numeracy
skills form an essential part of the
attributes ... needed by all teachers to be
effective in the classroom.”
However, given Craven’s comments,
the falling number of students embarking
on a teaching career in NSW, Smith’s
observations on the opacity of the test and
the influencing factors on test scores, and
the students’ experiences described above,
many are asking whether it’s time to either
revamp the test or change it completely. ■
*Names have been changed.
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