Writing assessment inquiry partnerships (WAIP)

Overview

The Learning Sciences Institute Australia (LSIA) and the Department of Education and Training (DET) are collaborating on a one-year project involving a research-informed intervention designed to improve teacher pedagogy and student writing outcomes.  The project is titled ‘Research Partnerships and Improvement Science: Using data to inform the teaching of writing and assessment’ and involves Australia’s first large-scale survey of the teaching of writing. This research partnership is part of the Education Horizon grant scheme initiative and has been endorsed by the Education Minister. The project takes a sharp focus on the teaching of writing in curriculum areas.

The Writing Assessment Inquiry Partnerships (WAIP) is a cutting-edge research and development project that fuses the teaching of meta-language and criterial knowledge to leverage improved student writing. Teachers are identified as co-researchers in the project and with the researchers will investigate the impact of this fusion methodology on teaching practice and student growth. Led by Professor Claire Wyatt-Smith, the project involves a team who will be collecting and using vital data about teachers’ preparation for and confidence in the teaching and assessment of writing.

This research project is building a research informed evidence-base about what counts as quality teaching of writing in the middle years. This project will inform development of teachers’ knowledge of language features; improve teachers’ knowledge and understanding of year level writing expectations and achievement standards to improve writing assessment and generate exemplars of quality writing for further classroom use. Using the Ed Studio platform, the Virtual Research Environment (VRE) will be used to supplement site visits and other online support.

Funding

• Education Horizon Research Grant Scheme, $170,000

Duration

2016-2017

Industry Partners

• Department of Education and Training (Queensland)
• State Schools — Performance, Department of Education and Training.

Published

March 21, 2017

Chief Investigator/s

Professor Claire Wyatt-Smith

ILSTE Research Team

Professor Joy Cumming

Professor Len Unsworth

Associate Professor Lenore Adie

Christine Jackson

Research Partners

Ms Mary Neville