While it is important that Australian teachers are made aware of their failures in teaching many Aboriginals to master literacy (Salmond, 1977; Duncan, 1974) there is a danger of developing a general expectancy that children of Aboriginal descent will be poor performers at school. Resnick and Robinson (1974) emphasize the influence of parent and teacher expectations on the expectations of the children themselves. Teachers’ expectations are particularly important for Aboriginals learning academic skills at school. It is the teacher who can grade learning tasks to ensure the child gains success through his own personal effort, a fundamental experience if low expectations are to be raised (Gurin and Gurin, 1972).The purpose of this paper is to examine data from the ACER Literacy and Numeracy study of Australian 10 and 14 year olds in 1975, as it relates to the Aboriginals in the sample. On the basis of this evidence it should be possible to draw some conclusions about the successes and failures of Aboriginal pupils in reading and numeracy.
Problems of measuring aptitudes and abilities are at present rather great. Errors of measurement within a test, coupled with fluctuations in a candidate's performance, necessitate that a test score be interpreted with caution.One of many possible variables influencing test scores was suggested by Ralph Tyler in 1930. He reported a correlation of '38 between two forms of the same test presented to 66 freshmen college students studying zoology. One form of the test required students to express, in their own words, suitable hypotheses that might be drawn from given facts. The other form, presented immediately after the expression test papers had been collected, entailed the selection of the most suitable hypotheses. After each set of given facts a number of hypotheses were presented from which students were required to select one. From his results, Tyler deduced that "the ability to select the most reasonable inference from a given list is not the same as the ability to propose an original inference" (pp. 477-8). A later study undertaken by A. S. Hurd (1932) showed, however, quite a high relationship, as indicated by a coefficient of '78 between parallel expression and recognition forms of a science test given to a large number of school children. As no details were included in the report regarding the age range and education level of the sample, these and other variables might have obscured the effect of test form in the ranking of pupils.M. R. Dunstan (1963) took a fresh approach to the study of test form. He employed a method of factor analysis to examine the structure underlying scores obtained by Teachers' College students on expression and recognition tests of English skills. Although his results showed evidence for an "expression form" factor in testing English, it should be pointed out that the materials on which the tests were based varied in content. Studies, such as those reported by J. M. Trenaman (1967) and M. Smilansky and L.
Small groups of children, identified as having poor listening and attention skills, or as reluctant contributors to oral expression in first grade classes, were stimulated to listen and discuss stories using "listening books" as resource materials. Two experimental studies showed considerable growth in these children's quality and quantity of oral expression and in recall of facts in a story. However, little improvement was observed in the number of syntactic errors, which suggested the need for a structured program to eliminate specific grammatical problems. The contribution of "listening books" as resource materials for first grade children "at risk" in language development is discussed.
A listening program geared to the interests of rural Aboriginal children was prepared and sent out to two Year S classes in the north-west of New South Wales. The class, with 19 Aboriginals and 4 whites showed measurable gains in listening comprehension at the end of the program. The Experimental Class with one Aboriginal girl and 10 white children did not show improvements in listening until the Aboriginally oriented listening program was terminated. The significance of these results, particularly for minority groups in a classroom, are discussed.
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