Emojis in sample NAPLAN test cause alarm amongst educators

HIGH school students are being asked to analyse SMS chats with emojis instead of literary texts in practice NAPLAN online exams, sparking concerns the flagship literacy assessment is being dumbed-down.

Fears introducing emojis into NAPLAN testing is dumbing down children.

HIGH school students are being asked to analyse SMS chats with emojis instead of literary texts in practice NAPLAN online exams, sparking concerns the flagship literacy assessment is being dumbed-down.

The Australian Curriculum and Assessment Authority has posted a series of public demonstration “mini-tests” ahead of this year’s transition to online NAPLAN testing, so students and teachers can become familiar with the digital format.

But the Year 9 reading test is already causing alarm, because it asks 14 and 15-year-olds to answer comprehension questions in response to a screenshot of a text message conversation about a teacher’s facial hair.

Students are asked questions about the text including who sent the first message and whether “mo” refers to Mr Grigg’s moustache. The NAPLAN website says the sample tests have questions “similar to the NAPLAN Online 2017 tests”.

An ACAA spokeswoman defended the text test, saying the demo site included a range of reading text types “from traditional to contemporary” with students expected to “analyse, interpret and evaluate a wide range of texts in context, including various types of authentic media texts, such as newspapers, film and digital.”

Kevin Donnelly, a senior research fellow with the Australian Catholic University, slammed the practice test as “very unsophisticated”.

Originally published as Emojis in sample NAPLAN test cause alarm amongst educators