Surprising findings from new analysis of declining NAPLAN writing test results

Despite the considerable annual investments of money and school resources to hold the NAPLAN tests, almost no research has sought to investigate patterns of student achievement in the NAPLAN writing test data over time. I wanted to know what the NAPLAN writing test results tell us about male and female student performance over time. My research study found Year 9 males write at a similar standard as Year 7 females. There has been a rapid decline in student writing scores for both genders, however the gap between male and female writing scores widens with every tested year level, to an equivalent of two years of learning by Year 9.