Is there any Correlation between GAT/NAPLAN results and your ATAR?

[pha0015]

The subject heading says it all. Could you use the statistics from your year 9 NAPLAN results e.g. top 6% average, to guess your VCE results?

In truth, I know that it's not really a valid comparison, as:

• a lot can change in three years
• it doesn't account for subjects besides English and Maths
• maths doesn't really count as it was very basic etc...

How about your GAT results? I don't really know much about them as I'm still in year 11. Do they match up with study scores or ATARs?

[Aaron]

Not at all. The only relationship between the GAT and ATAR/study scores is the fact that it can play a role if you need special consideration.

The GAT is something you cannot really study for - whereas your scores and ATAR are subject to a year's worth of study (at least).

Of course, someone who scores really high in the NAPLAN Numeracy (for example) may in fact do really well in maths later on, as the capability is there. This is not rocket science.

I would not take scores from the GAT and/or NAPLAN too seriously.

Personally - I scored Band 10 in my Year 9 NAPLAN for Spelling, yet did terrible in VCE English. So from my point of view, I see no relationship.

[pha0015]

Dare I ask you English study score? JK.
Thanks for your swift reply.
Realistically I knew that would be the case, but I was still hopeful, as I'd done well in NAPLAN.

[jamonwindeyer]

Dare I ask you English study score? JK.
Thanks for your swift reply.
Realistically I knew that would be the case, but I was still hopeful, as I'd done well in NAPLAN.

Doing well in NAPLAN is absolutely a great sign you have the aptitude to do extremely well in the HSC as well. Clearly if you do well in NAPLAN, you are demonstrating capability as Aaron mentions - It's not the same style of assessment but it is still a positive sign!

[Joseph41]

The subject heading says it all. Could you use the statistics from your year 9 NAPLAN results e.g. top 6% average, to guess your VCE results?

In truth, I know that it's not really a valid comparison, as:

• a lot can change in three years
• it doesn't account for subjects besides English and Maths
• maths doesn't really count as it was very basic etc...

How about your GAT results? I don't really know much about them as I'm still in year 11. Do they match up with study scores or ATARs?

Hey, pha0015! I actually think that this is a super interesting question. Does anybody have statistical evidence on this or anything related?

My gut feeling is that, statistically, those who perform well on NAPLAN are more likely to perform well in VCE, but I have nothing concrete. I mean, I don't think there would be a hugely strong correlation, but I'd be surprised if there were no correlation whatsoever. There are obvious flaws to this, but I'd be extremely interested in further discussion.

Speaking from personal experience and also anecdotally, the GAT is a bit weird. Like, I tried my little heart out on the GAT and didn't do particularly well, but did well enough in VCE. And I know that the opposite was true for several people in my year. I haven't really worked out why that's the case yet, haha.

Interesting thread.

[RuiAce]

My NAPLAN probably reflected my results quite adequately.

I messed up the reading section but then did well in everything else. Come my HSC, my essays were very mediocre but I did really well in maths and creative writing. And I never had the problem of poor spelling, grammar and punctuation.

If we were talking about dependency I'd bluntly say no. But as for correlation? Quite likely that there's going to be some correlation.


That being said, whilst it would be a noticeable correlation, I doubt it'd be significant. There's still cases of people ignoring 7-10 but then choosing to pick up their game in 11-12, or only 12.

[Quantum44]

In my experience,

Most people who get a good ATAR did well in NAPLAN

But not everyone who did well in NAPLAN gets a good ATAR

[plsbegentle]

The subject heading says it all. Could you use the statistics from your year 9 NAPLAN results e.g. top 6% average, to guess your VCE results?

In truth, I know that it's not really a valid comparison, as:

• a lot can change in three years
• it doesn't account for subjects besides English and Maths
• maths doesn't really count as it was very basic etc...

How about your GAT results? I don't really know much about them as I'm still in year 11. Do they match up with study scores or ATARs?

I would say GAT is a decent indication of the study score, however a lot of people (including myself) do not take the gat too seriously, like in actual fact, i think i scored around ~14 for each section. But i've heard from my school that people usually get around the mark they expected through the GAT.

[zhen]

The subject heading says it all. Could you use the statistics from your year 9 NAPLAN results e.g. top 6% average, to guess your VCE results?

In truth, I know that it's not really a valid comparison, as:

• a lot can change in three years
• it doesn't account for subjects besides English and Maths
• maths doesn't really count as it was very basic etc...

How about your GAT results? I don't really know much about them as I'm still in year 11. Do they match up with study scores or ATARs?

I'm pretty sure that there is a correlation, since lots of students that do well in VCE also do well in naplan. But I feel like it's not a very strong correlation. For example, I'd say someone who was in the top 1% in naplan will not necessarily get in the top 1% in VCE, since lots of kids don't take naplan seriously and like you said lots of people change over three years and it's not really a good indicator. But I feel like if you're in the top 1% of naplan, you'll probably get in at least the top 20% in VCE, since unless you completely bomb out or stop studying, since the stuff you did in year 9 still carries through to some extent. Note that these are just random values that I made up to illustrate my point. Also for GAT, since a large portion of the state doesn't try for the GAT at all and another large portion just gives up in the middle of the GAT because of its length (I'm one of them), the GAT isn't really a good indicator of ability. But, like the naplan there is probably a correlation between a good GAT score and doing well in VCE.

[vox nihili]

Hey, pha0015! I actually think that this is a super interesting question. Does anybody have statistical evidence on this or anything related?

Yes, indeed such evidence does exist at least for the Victorian context. No real reason to suspect that NSW would be any different...

See paper here: http://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/downloads/working_paper_series/wp2014n22.pdf

The short and sweet of the research is summarised by The Age here, or by the Education Department here.


tl;dr: yes, NAPLAN is a reliable indicator of how students will do in VCE.


Just to add:

These data merely reflect the trends in VCE. It's really important to bear in mind that these are probabilistic measurements; therefore, someone who does well on NAPLAN is significantly more likely than someone who does not do well on NAPLAN. Likewise, the research also reflects on the fact that someone from low SES is unlikely to do well in VCE. Neither of these findings means that someone who does poorly on NAPLAN or someone from low SES cannot do well in VCE though. Naturally, in each group (i.e. bad NAPLAN/low SES) there is a huge degree of variance, with some students doing much better than the average and others doing much worse.

What all students who do well have in common is the belief that they can do well. These data define your odds, they do not define your outcome!

[vox nihili]

Also, props to Joseph41 for asking for the research.


I think this discussion really does demonstrate the importance of doing this research and how much anecdotal evidence can distort your view of a topic, as most of what has been said thus far is largely contradicted by the evidence.

It took less than one minute to Google this and quickly read the links I provided above. Well worth it to avoid disseminating false information imo.

[Joseph41]

^Great - thanks for that, vox nihili!

That article published in The Age is interesting. It also goes into some social factors, like this:

The study shows a student in the bottom SES quartile with low NAPLAN scores had less than a 1 per cent chance of achieving an ATAR of 70. But a student from the top SES quartile with the same NAPLAN scores had a 13.5 per cent chance of success.