Editorial

Belonging, self-efficacy and representation are themes that run through a number of articles in this issue of the Australian Journal of Education.

Tebeje Molla reports on a study of post-school transition supports available to refugee-background African students attending Victorian government secondary schools. The author identifies three overarching themes in the semi-structured interviews conducted with six career educators and three community engagement/liaison officers – transition opportunities, persisting challenges, and silences and issue omissions. While schools provide transition opportunities, including career planning, alternative pathways and engaging with (African) community officers, respondents note a number of challenges in preparing this particular group of students for transitions to work and further training and education. Academic disengagement, disconnect between student aspirations and realistic options, parental misconceptions about qualifications and low self-efficacy of students are highlighted as the main challenges. Further research that examines the perspectives of parents and students themselves are needed, as well as recognition of the influence of institutional factors, including overt and covert racial bias, in order to better support these students and their families for post-school transitions.

Belonging and representation, this time of female-identifying people in the sciences, particularly physics, is explored by Vicki Keast through analysis of the physics syllabus, examination papers and commonly available textbooks for the New South Wales Higher School Certificate. Examination of the graphic content (photographs, illustrations and other figures) of these documents found that that the number of figures that was readily identifiable as male greatly outnumbers the number of female figures. The author suggests that while the finding may be influenced by a focus on the history of physics in the syllabus, continuing to present an unbalanced and unrepresentative face of physics is likely to be counterproductive to ongoing efforts to increase interest and participation in sciences among female students.

Representation of Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the higher education sector is the focus of the article from Michelle Trudgett, Susan Page and Stacey Coates. As part of the Walan Mayiny: Indigenous Leadership in Higher Education project, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a number of different participant groups. Responses from Senior Indigenous leaders, Senior Executive staff and Indigenous academics to a question related to representation and Indigenous voice in the academy were analysed for this article; the authors found that no single body was identified by respondents as representing the Indigenous portfolio, although respondents were able to name groups that provide important contributions in the area. Drawing on interviews with participants, reviews of literature and the authors’ own experiences as Indigenous higher education practitioners, they recommend the formation of a new sub-group for Universities Australia to act as the primary Indigenous advice mechanism and that the Federal Minister for Education re-establish an Indigenous Advisory Committee. The authors conclude that advancement of Indigenous representation in higher education depends on meaningful collaboration of the Federal government and Universities Australia with Indigenous peoples.

The next article focuses on development of self-efficacy among pre-service teachers over the final months of their initial teacher education programmes. Kang Ma, Anne McMaugh and Michael Cavanagh report on their longitudinal study of the changes in self-efficacy for teaching reported by 201 pre-service teachers in the final 2 years of preparation. Data were collected at three time points (after the initial professional placement, before the final placement and again after completion of the final professional placement), and multilevel models were applied to analyse changes in self-efficacy over time. Scores in the domains of classroom management and student engagement decreased in between students completing their first placement and before beginning their final placement. Students reported a consistently higher level of self-efficacy in instructional strategies over the same period (between placements). Scores increased in all three domains of self-efficacy over the course of the final placement, highlighting the importance of these experiences in assisting pre-service teachers feel prepared for their new career and its challenges.

Nicola Bell and Kevin Wheldall examine relationships between reading comprehension constructs and word reading accuracy in students presenting with reading difficulties in the next article. Using data sourced from over 800 students in Years 3 to 6 who participated in reading intervention programmes between 2003 and 2016, the authors explore how real word reading ability moderates relationships between reading comprehension and its underlying skills – decoding ability (measured using a test of non-word reading ability) and receptive vocabulary. Interactions between word reading and non-word reading and word reading and receptive vocabulary were both significant, findings that are in line with previous research using students without reading difficulties. As readers, both typically developing and those who experience difficulties, progress with their reading, they rely less on decoding, their word reading becomes more automated and thus relationships between measures of these skills and reading comprehension weaken. For some students, however, word-level weaknesses may limit their capacity to comprehend written text and engage fully with reading.

The issue concludes with an article by Mark Dowley and Suzanne Rice that explores student attitudes towards and perceptions of tests. Over 200 secondary students (Years 7 and 9) were surveyed about their experiences participating in the National Assessment Program (Literacy and Numeracy) (NAPLAN) assessments and internal school tests in mathematics and English. Students placed more value on doing well in internal tests than doing well in NAPLAN, had higher expectations of doing well in internal tests than in NAPLAN, and reported putting in more effort for internal tests of both English and mathematics. Fewer students reported feeling nervous or stressed before NAPLAN than for internal tests, but more students reported feeling bored in response to NAPLAN than for their school tests. While most students reported low levels of negative emotional responses to NAPLAN, a small group of students reported strong negative emotional responses to both NAPLAN and internal school tests, suggesting that negative responses to national testing programmes may be dependent on the individual student.

Keep reading and learning!