NAPLAN stress causes vomiting, insomnia

[golden]

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2012/11/26/02/00/naplan-stress-causes-vomiting-insomnia:

Stress-related vomiting and insomnia are affecting children in the lead-up to the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), a new study shows.

In the landmark University of Melbourne study, for which 8353 teachers and principals were surveyed, concerns about the "unintended side effects" of NAPLAN were raised.
These concerns included teaching to the test and a negative effect on student health and teacher morale, Fairfax reported.
About half the teachers surveyed said NAPLAN practice tests were held once a week in the five months leading up to the test.
About 90 per cent said some students felt stressed before the test, leading to crying, vomiting, insomnia and absenteeism.

Any opinions?
What about a study on VCE? Imagine how deep it can get.

With regard to the bolded part - I have honestly never heard of this before today.

[paulsterio]

I think this is better, sooner or later, students are going to be exposed to high stakes testing, whether it be NAPLAN, VCE or university exams. Even after that the world is a cut throat place where you must compete. There's nothing wrong with competition itself. What's wrong is the way that teachers, students (and very often parents as well) take these high stakes exams. I think that's where the issue lies. But either way, the NAPLAN will prepare students for later exams such as VCE...etc.

[RTandon]

I think this is better, sooner or later, students are going to be exposed to high stakes testing, whether it be NAPLAN, VCE or university exams. Even after that the world is a cut throat place where you must compete. There's nothing wrong with competition itself. What's wrong is the way that teachers, students (and very often parents as well) take these high stakes exams. I think that's where the issue lies. But either way, the NAPLAN will prepare students for later exams such as VCE...etc.

But if they are kids in grade 3 then I don't think it's on. Maybe for year 9 students, but the rest are far too young to be exposed to so much stress

[Yendall]

I think this is better, sooner or later, students are going to be exposed to high stakes testing, whether it be NAPLAN, VCE or university exams. Even after that the world is a cut throat place where you must compete. There's nothing wrong with competition itself. What's wrong is the way that teachers, students (and very often parents as well) take these high stakes exams. I think that's where the issue lies. But either way, the NAPLAN will prepare students for later exams such as VCE...etc.

But if they are kids in grade 3 then I don't think it's on. Maybe for year 9 students, but the rest are far too young to be exposed to so much stress

I don't think Grade 3's would be vomiting and stuff, it would be more the Year 9's.

[golden]

Would anyone think it's more towards the 'super top tiers' for that matter? I am not suggesting this, rather just wondering.

About half the teachers surveyed said NAPLAN practice tests were held once a week in the five months leading up to the test.

They could have surveyed teachers from the same school, which may have skewed the results, but I find it hard to believe this is true having never heard about this - once a week in the five months leading up to the test?

[WINGARDIUM]

My teachers told us about NAPLAN (or AIMS tests back in the day) a couple of days before --> No explicit preparation from school at all! My teachers never "taught NAPLAN" - It sounds absurd!

Plus it was a "self selecting survey" therefore inherent bias?

[CaiTheHuman]

Suck it up, this is all just distorted misconstrued use of statistics. My guess is that they probably skewed the results I've had 10 nieces,nephews and cousins going through the NAPLAN and they did fine. No vomiting, no crying and definitely no insomnia. They were happy little campers. People need to wake up and not diminish the importance of homework and these tests. Maybe if we had a mindset akin to those of Finnish Students we wouldn't require this but we don't. Parents are just finding excuses for their children. I remember doing AIMS and not going through anything like this, heck the school didn't even prepare it for us and I managed to do considerably well , which was relative to the preparation I was given.

[b^3]

I remember doing AIMS and not going through anything like this, heck the school didn't even prepare it for us and I managed to do considerably well , which was relative to the preparation I was given.

To be fair though, when we did the AIMS tests, it was basically a joke, the teachers didn't care and neither did the school. It was just time taken away from them that they could of used to be teaching.

[paulsterio]

But if they are kids in grade 3 then I don't think it's on. Maybe for year 9 students, but the rest are far too young to be exposed to so much stress

Stress is what you make of it, it's not the NAPLAN's fault they are stressed. If they are stressed it is the fault of the parents and the teachers for blowing it up out of proportion. You can't blame the system when the system is not at fault. Students have been sitting tests in Grade 3 for ages and there seems to be no problems with that because it's not high profile. What needs to be done is that we need to teach kids that tests and exams are just that - tests and exams - I know personally I never really cared about how well I did on exams because I just think whatever I get I deserve, whatever happens happens and that's the attitude that we need to teach kids - that although exams matter and although they should try their best and give it their all, they shouldn't be stressed or disappointed, but see it as a source of continual improvement.

It's much better to expose kids to the elements early on, in a controlled environment such as school where they can develop and learn the skills required to cope with life. One of the faults of today's education system is that while it academically prepares people for the future very well, it doesn't prepare people well emotionally, especially in today's cut throat and competitive world.

And yes, I completely agree that this is one of the instances where parents are detrimental to their children's education - the issue with parents is that they're overly competitive, put high stakes on everything and often place unnecessary pressure on their kids to do well. Also, yes, they're usually whingers who can't accept that their kids didn't do well so pull every excuse out of the bag to deny it.

I don't think Grade 3's would be vomiting and stuff, it would be more the Year 9's.

It's not natural for either Grade 3s nor Year 9s to be vomiting and stuff - since when did kids care about standardised tests so much?

To be fair though, when we did the AIMS tests, it was basically a joke, the teachers didn't care and neither did the school. It was just time taken away from them that they could of used to be teaching.

And what has changed since the NAPLAN was introduced? Nothing - just parents being aware of it and putting pressure on their kids. The NAPLAN is exactly the same concept as the AIMS test, having looked at practice material for both.

[Yendall]

It's not natural for either Grade 3s nor Year 9s to be vomiting and stuff - since when did kids care about standardised tests so much?

It's like people vomiting before the GAT, it just doesn't happen. I will admit I've known a couple of people to be sick or upset before an exam, but not NAPLAN, AIMS or the GAT.

[slothpomba]

Channel 9 isn't really the best or indepth news source.

The conversation is written by university academics and it's really great for these things, these people know what they're talking about.

They've written a fair few articles about the NAPLAN too, worth a read.

About 90 per cent of respondents said some students felt stressed before the test
.....leading to crying, vomiting, insomnia and absenteeism, Fairfax said on Monday.

I don't know if those two halves of the sentence are connected in the right way. I seriously doubt all of those 90% cried, vomited, stayed home from school or had insomnia.

Then there's this

Mr Garrett defended the NAPLAN regime, saying the survey only represented about three per cent of union members and did not represent the message he was getting from the coalface.

"There's a lot of teachers in Australia and this doesn't constitute a large number of them," he told ABC Television.

Anyway, love or loathe it, it looks like it's here to stay. The opposition is in favour of it too:

The opposition's education spokesman Christopher Pyne agreed NAPLAN was an important diagnostic tool, and teachers had to learn to use it properly.

"There's no reason to throw the NAPLAN out the window because the teachers are doing the wrong thing," he told Sky News.

"They shouldn't be teaching to the test, they should be teaching students just as they always do."

The NAPLAN is a diagnostic tool mostly. It's used to see how schools are performing overall for administrative reasons. IF schools are seriously under, then, it's clear there's something wrong. Likewise, if some schools are miles above the average, they just might be doing something right.

It's real useful for seeing where individual students are in their abilities (and if they need help) since it's a standardised test thats used around the country.

I think this is better, sooner or later, students are going to be exposed to high stakes testing, whether it be NAPLAN

I don't think the NAPLAN is a high-stakes test at all, its a diagnostic thing.

If anyone is looking upon it as a high-stakes test or something to be tutored for specifically, they're ruining the diagnostic purpose.

I highly doubt we should be preparing primary school kids for VCE or any other high-stakes test early on, you're not the same in year 9 as you were in year 2, kids mature, they grow, thats why everything is in phases. That kind of pressure can be rather unhealthy as well (see the chinese or korean education systems). In primary school you should be learning basic concepts about the world, socialising (learning to be social and how to act around other people is as important, if not more important as everything else in primary school) and just generally...you know..having a childhood.

The biggest problem here is teachers or even parents (cant imagine why) teaching to the test and things like that when it's clearly not for that purpose.

[ninwa]

The respondents are teachers AFAIK so they are talking about their students

[slothpomba]

I'm not sure but this conversation article might be written by actual person who ran the study rather than a channel 9 journalist.

Worth a read.

[paulsterio]

I highly doubt we should be preparing primary school kids for VCE or any other high-stakes test early on, you're not the same in year 9 as you were in year 2, kids mature, they grow, thats why everything is in phases. That kind of pressure can be rather unhealthy as well (see the chinese or korean education systems). In primary school you should be learning basic concepts about the world, socialising (learning to be social and how to act around other people is as important, if not more important as everything else in primary school) and just generally...you know..having a childhood.

Yes, but one of the issues with VCE is that students are suddenly exposed to high-stakes testing out of the blue. When you go to play poker, you don't go and sit at a high roller table on your first go, you'd probably start off by playing with friends, then move to placing bets and then gradually moving up at the casino starting from the $1/$2 games. It should be the same thing with high school, you can't just suddenly say "oh hey, these exams are the most important thing ever" when they're the first exams that really matter - students need to be introduced to the concept of exams from an early age and be prepared for the things that come.

[IndefatigableLover]

Just read this now and.. yeah:

since when did kids care about standardised tests so much?

Back when I did AIMS/NAPLAN, in Year 5 we were pretty heavily studying for this for about 3 months where we just learnt Maths and English (but then again you never learn Science in primary school ) but we only did practice tests once every 2-3 weeks which I remember was a bit excessive compared to other schools...

But if they are kids in grade 3 then I don't think it's on. Maybe for year 9 students, but the rest are far too young to be exposed to so much stress

At my school nobody took NAPLAN seriously... phones were out during Spelling and I was allowed to use my graphics calculator for maths lol (I heard from my friend that they were all given graphics calculators to do the maths part [Only one question was needed for it though])
It's like the GAT... nobody takes it seriously and even now in Year 9 nobody takes NAPLAN seriously (Year 7 I think would be an exception though).

Although I agree with the exposure with these tests to help students prepare for VCE etc... my argument would be to actually make one that prepares you properly since NAPLAN is sort of a lame  (no offence)