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What is behind the decline in student achievement in Australia?

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Abstract

Australian school student achievement in reading and mathematical literacy has fallen in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) collection since 2000. This study finds that these declines were widespread in the student population, affecting both males and females. However, the decline in reading literacy occurred throughout much of the achievement distribution, while the decline in mathematical literacy was more pronounced at the top of the distribution (there were fewer high performing students in 2009 compared with 2003). Declines in both literacy domains were apparent across the entire distribution of schools, however, the falls in school performance were more apparent in private schools than in the government-run school systems in Australia. The declines were not associated with many other characteristics of schools, including many factors that might have been thought to be associated with school performance.

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  • Ryan, Chris, 2013. "What is behind the decline in student achievement in Australia?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 226-239.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:37:y:2013:i:c:p:226-239
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2013.08.008
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    Cited by:

    1. Cain Polidano & Chris Ryan, 2017. "What Happens to Students with Low Reading Proficiency at 15? Evidence from Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93(303), pages 600-614, December.
    2. Mahuteau, Stephane & Mavromaras, Kostas, 2014. "Student Scores in Public and Private Schools: Evidence from PISA 2009," IZA Discussion Papers 8471, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Son Nghiem & Ha Trong Nguyen & Luke B. Connelly, 2016. "The Efficiency of Australian Schools: A Nationwide Analysis Using Gains in Test Scores of Students as Outputs," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 35(3), pages 256-268, September.
    4. Nghiem, Son & Nguyen, Ha & Connelly, Luke, 2014. "The Efficiency of Australian Schools: Evidence from the NAPLAN Data 2009-2011," MPRA Paper 56231, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Haeck, Catherine & Lefebvre, Pierre & Merrigan, Philip, 2014. "The distributional impacts of a universal school reform on mathematical achievements: A natural experiment from Canada," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 137-160.
    6. Ian W. Li & A. Michael Dockery, 2015. "Does School Socio-economic Status Influence University Outcomes?," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 18(1), pages 75-94.
    7. Chapman, Bruce & Lounkaew, Kiatanantha, 2013. "Introduction to the special issue on Economic Research for Education Policy," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 200-203.
    8. John Jerrim, 2014. "Why do East Asian children perform so well in PISA? An investigation of Western-born children of East Asian descent," DoQSS Working Papers 14-16, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Efficiency; Human capital; School choice;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

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