The six-year learning gap dividing WA students

West Australian students who come from advantaged backgrounds could be more than six years ahead of their peers when it comes to learning outcomes, new research suggests.

For the first time, researchers have developed a methodology to convert NAPLAN scores into equivalent years of learning to paint a clearer picture of the gap between students from different socioeconomic groups, instead of comparing students by achievement bands or results.

Advantaged students were considered to have parents who had obtained a bachelors degree or higher, while disadvantaged students were those with parents who did not complete school.

Parents’ level of education is often used as a proxy for a students’ socioeconomic background in combination with other variables, according to Andres Molina, a senior research fellow at the Centre for International Research on Education Systems.

Molina led the new research , which compiled 17 years’ worth of NAPLAN data to look at how inequalities and gaps in student learning outcomes were behaving over time.

“There’s large and persistent learning gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students,” he said.

“Those gaps have been growing over time, and these widening gaps are mostly due to disadvantaged students faring worse over time compared to the average Australian, and that these inequalities are a feature of schooling in all Australian states and territories, including Western Australia.”

Molina pulled the figures, released by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, from the reading section of NAPLAN testing between 2023 and 2026 for WA students.

He then translated that data into years of learning. Year 3 students from disadvantaged backgrounds were more than two years behind their peers from advantaged backgrounds in 2026’s results.

“The gaps grow as students progress through school, so the gaps are low in year three, and they tend to increase as students move in their school journey,” Molina said.

“There’s theories about why that happens. One is that disadvantage compounds over time, and students who have difficulties mastering certain subjects and skills have a harder time achieving more sophisticated or advanced skills that come later on.

“It could also be that there is a greater concentration of disadvantage in secondary schools. A lot of parents make choices and move schools between primary and secondary based on the privilege or the opportunities that those schools will give for further education.

“That creates a strong, uneven distribution of students, and that produces a double disadvantage.”

Students in general across WA perform at a slightly lower level than the rest of Australia when compared to students of a similar background, according to Molina, but in the past five to six years that situation has changed for disadvantaged students.