Factors contributing to educational outcomes for First Nations students from remote communities: A systematic review

Guenther, John; Lowe, Kevin; Burgess, Cathie; Vass, Greg; Moodie, Nikki

doi:10.1007/s13384-019-00308-4

Cited by 53 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Where there was only one major piece of work written on the topic since the turn of the century – Mander’s (2012) PhD thesis on boarding experiences in Western Australia – there are now more than 40 peer-reviewed articles or theses that address the issues faced by remote First Nations students attending boarding schools. Thorough summaries of this literature can be found in Guenther and Fogarty’s (2018) examination through capital lenses of boarding, Parson’s (2019) systematic review of First Nations scholarship recipients, MacDonald et al’s (2018) discussion of boarding school utility for First Nations students and Guenther et al’s (2019) systematic review of outcomes for remote First Nations students.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thinking with theory as a policy evaluation tool: The case of boarding schools for remote First Nations students

Guenther

Benveniste

Redman-MacLaren

et al. 2020

Evaluation Journal of Australasia

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Many recent policy documents have outlined the challenges of delivering high-quality education in remote First Nations communities and proposed that boarding schools are one important solution. These documents have influenced the increasing uptake of boarding options and there has been considerable public investment in scholarships, residential facilities and transition support. Yet the outcomes of this investment and policy effort are not well understood. The authors of this article came together as a collaboration of researchers who have published about boarding school education for First Nations students to examine the evidence and develop a theory-driven understanding of how policies drive systems to produce both desirable and undesirable outcomes for First Nations boarding school students. We applied complexity theory and post-structural policy analysis techniques and produced a useful tool for the evaluation of boarding policy and its implementation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thinking with theory as a policy evaluation tool: The case of boarding schools for remote First Nations students

Guenther

Benveniste

Redman-MacLaren

et al. 2020

Evaluation Journal of Australasia

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“…Limitations include the study cohort being only children who attended public schools, and the analysis being unable to make strong causal claims about the directional nature of the relationships between the different indicators. This study also used a narrow criteria for school success by using reading and numeracy scores at Year 3 NAPLAN [ 94 ]; this study is unable to investigate other to other positive educational outcomes [ 94 ] (e.g. well-being, aspirations, participation, identities, relational) due to data limitations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pathways to school success: Self-regulation and executive function, preschool attendance and early academic achievement of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children in Australia’s Northern Territory

Nutton

Graham

et al. 2021

PLoS ONE

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Background With the pending implementation of the Closing the Gap 2020 recommendations, there is an urgent need to better understand the contributing factors of, and pathways to positive educational outcomes for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children. This deeper understanding is particularly important in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia, in which the majority of Aboriginal children lived in remote communities and have language backgrounds other than English (i.e. 75%). Methods This study linked the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) to the attendance data (i.e. government preschool and primary schools) and Year 3 National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). Structural equation modelling was used to investigate the pathway from self-regulation and executive function (SR-EF) at age 5 to early academic achievement (i.e. Year 3 reading/numeracy at age 8) for 3,199 NT children. Result The study confirms the expected importance of SR-EF for all children but suggests the different pathways for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children. For non-Aboriginal children, there was a significant indirect effect of SR-EF (β = 0.38, p<0.001) on early academic achievement, mediated by early literacy/numeracy skills (at age 5). For Aboriginal children, there were significant indirect effects of SR-EF (β = 0.19, p<0.001) and preschool attendance (β = 0.20, p<0.001), mediated by early literacy/numeracy skills and early primary school attendance (i.e. Transition Years to Year 2 (age 5–7)). Conclusion This study highlights the need for further investigation and development of culturally, linguistically and contextually responsive programs and policies to support SR-EF skills in the current Australian education context. There is a pressing need to better understand how current policies and programs enhance children and their families’ sense of safety and support to nurture these skills. This study also confirms the critical importance of school attendance for improved educational outcomes of Aboriginal children. However, the factors contributing to non-attendance are complex, hence the solutions require multi-sectoral collaboration in place-based design for effective implementation.

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“…A systematic review on outcomes for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students published by Guenther et al (2019) sheds some light on factors that contribute to better outcomes in peer reviewed literature published between 2006 and 2017. The review found little evidence that programmatic approaches made a positive difference-the one exception being the ABRACADABRA (Wolgemuth et al, 2013) programme, which demonstrated increased phonological awareness.…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Did DI do it? The impact of a programme designed to improve literacy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in remote schools

Guenther

Osborne

2020

AJIE

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Over the 10 years of ‘Closing the Gap’, several interventions designed to improve outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students have been trialled. In 2014 the Australian Government announced the ‘Flexible Literacy for Remote Primary Schools Programme’ (FLFRPSP) which was designed primarily to improve the literacy outcomes of students in remote schools with mostly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. The programme, using Direct Instruction (DI) or Explicit Direct Instruction, was extended to 2019 with more than $30 million invested. By 2017, 34 remote schools were participating in the Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia. This paper analyses My School data for 25 ‘very remote’ FLFRPSP schools with more than 80% Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander students. It considers Year 3 and 5 NAPLAN reading results and attendance rates for participating and non-participating primary schools in the 3 years before the programme's implementation and compares them with results since. Findings show that, compared to very remote schools without FLFRPSP, the programme has not improved students' literacy abilities and results. Attendance rates for intervention schools have declined faster than for non-intervention schools. The paper questions the ethics of policy implementation and the role of evidence as a tool for accountability.

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Factors contributing to educational outcomes for First Nations students from remote communities: A systematic review

Cited by 53 publications

References 29 publications

Thinking with theory as a policy evaluation tool: The case of boarding schools for remote First Nations students

Thinking with theory as a policy evaluation tool: The case of boarding schools for remote First Nations students

Pathways to school success: Self-regulation and executive function, preschool attendance and early academic achievement of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children in Australia’s Northern Territory

Did DI do it? The impact of a programme designed to improve literacy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in remote schools

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