Do secondary English teachers have adequate time and resourcing to meet the needs of struggling literacy learners?

Figures & data

Table 1. Respondent characteristics

Characteristic	In sample (N = 315)	In sample (%)
Gender
Female	270	85.71
Male	42	13.33
Other	3	0.95
Age Group
<20	0	0.00
21–30	51	16.19
31–40	92	29.21
41–50	90	28.57
51–60	65	20.63
61–70	16	5.08
>71	1	0.32
Years teaching experience
<3	32	10.16
3–6	55	17.46
7–10	49	15.56
11–14	58	18.41
15–18	32	10.16
19–22	21	6.67
23–26	22	6.98
27–30	22	6.98
>30	24	7.62
Years post teacher training
<3	27	8.57
3–6	58	18.41
7–10	43	13.65
11–14	51	16.19
15–18	41	13.02
19–22	21	6.67
23–26	18	5.71
27–30	25	7.94
>30	31	9.84

Table 2. School characteristics

Characteristic	In sample (N = 315)	In sample (%)
Location
Metropolitan	220	69.84
Rural	90	28.57
Remote	5	1.59
State/territory of school location
South Australia	41	13.02
Tasmania	12	3.81
Northern Territory	14	4.44
New South Wales	82	26.03
Western Australia	56	17.78
Queensland	50	15.87
Victoria	45	14.29
Australian Capital Territory	15	4.76
School type
Government (public)	195	61.90
Private	120	38.10
ICSEAa
Above average ICSEA	67	21.27
Average ICSEA (1000)	79	25.08
Below Average ICSEA	106	33.65
Unsure	63	20.00

^aICSEA relates to the socio-educational backgrounds of students at this school (ACARA 2017)

Table 3. Ease of time to support struggling learners

Level of agreement	In sample (N = 315)	In sample (%)
Strongly agree	6	1.90
Somewhat agree	22	6.98
Neither agree nor disagree	15	4.76
Somewhat disagree	95	30.16
Strongly disagree	177	56.19
Mean	4.32
Median	5.00
Std deviation	.981

Table 4. Joint display of reasons for agreement/disagreement on sufficient time

Agreement	In sample (%)	Theme	Text example
Agreement (strong/somewhat)	8.88	Group work	“Group work with rotation”
		One-to-one support	“Have plenty of allocated time to help them specifically”
		Scaffolding	“Scaffolding and chunking to assist all year levels”
		Support staff	“Student support teachers, counsellors, Indigenous support teachers”
Disagreement (strong/somewhat)	86.35	Administrative demands	“Documentation procedures and demands at the College severely limit time to focus on teaching practice and mastery”.
		Behaviour management	“Poor behaviour means I can rarely support students on an individual basis”.
		Class size and individual support	“Class size- regardless of ‘expert’ opinions, class size DOES matter, that is, the smaller the class, the easier it is to individually attend to learning issues in the classroom”.
		Competing demands	“Abandoning the flock for the lost sheep – difficult to balance how much focus to give them so that it is not at the expense of the majority who are more capable”.
		Curriculum	“Pressures of the curriculum. By the time students are in the senior years of secondary school there is very little time to spend on developing literacy skills. The focus has to be on getting through the course which means that many struggle to meet requirements”.
		Extent of differentiation needed	“Despite differentiating learning it can be very difficult to meet all the needs of the struggling learners in a class with such diversity. I have one class with two students with reading ages three or more years below their age with a student doing extended studies at a college level”.
		Knowledge and training	“Often my colleagues and I don’t feel supported in identifying and addressing all literacy problems due to our training being so limited”
		School support	“I’m flat out planning lessons without differentiating across seven achievement levels. And it’s all on me to do it, no support from the school”
		Resourcing	“For students that need proper targeted intervention, a lack of resources is the main issue”
		Support staff	“Often it is due to a lack of support staff as I have low level classes and many students with disabilities/learning disabilities and no additional support. I can be in a room with 29 kids and I sit one on one with kids who need the support, and I look over at the others who need support, and I just can’t be in two places at once. So lack of support staff (which I think stems from lack of funding)”.

Table 5. Resourcing to meet literacy needs

Availability of supportive resource/level of agreement	In sample (N = 315)	In sample (%)
Sufficient access to support staff
Strongly agree	19	6.03
Somewhat agree	70	22.22
Neither agree nor disagree	27	8.57
Somewhat disagree	100	31.75
Strongly disagree	99	31.43
Adequate material resources
Strongly agree	19	6.03
Somewhat agree	92	29.21
Neither agree nor disagree	45	14.29
Somewhat disagree	109	34.60
Strongly disagree	50	15.87

Table 6. Correlation matrix of resources adequacy

	Time	Resources	Staff
Time	1	.276**	.304**
Resources	.276**	1	.402**
Staff	.304**	.402**	1

** p < .01. Kendall’s tau correlation matrix.

Table 7. Sector and resources

Resources	Sector	N	Mean Rank	Sum of Ranks	Mann-Whitney U, z-score
Resources	Public/government	195	170.22	33193	9317**, −3.15
	Private/independent	120	138.14	16577
	Total	315
Staff	Public/government	195	175.05	34134	8376***, −4.40
	Private/independent	120	130.3	15636
	Total	315

**p < .01, ***p < .001

Table 8. States/territories and resources

Resources	States/Territories	N	Mean Rank	Kruskal-Wallis, d.f.
Resources	South Australia	41	145.16	5.63^+, 7
	Tasmania	12	158.29
	Northern Territory	14	140.32
	New South Wales	82	156.29
	Western Australia	56	162.52
	Queensland	50	170.68
	Victoria	45	169.62
	Australian Capital Territory	15	124.73
	Total	315
Staff	South Australia	41	136.83	6.53^+, 7
	Tasmania	12	165.33
	Northern Territory	14	151.14
	New South Wales	82	154.76
	Western Australia	56	156.77
	Queensland	50	156.89
	Victoria	45	175.2
	Australian Capital Territory	15	190.8
	Total	315

⁺p > .05, d.f. = degree of freedom.

Table 9. Resources and locations

Resources	Location	N	Mean Rank	Kruskal-Wallis, d.f.
Resources	Urban/metropolitan	220	155.11	1.69^+, 2
	Rural/country	90	166.69
	Remote	5	128.5
	Total	315
Staff	Urban/metropolitan	220	152.85	2.91^+, 2
	Rural/country	90	168.62
	Remote	5	193.6
	Total	315
^+p > .05, d.f. = degree of freedom.

Table 10. Nominal-by-interval correlations, Eta, ƞ

	Resources	Staff	Time
Sector	.18, ƞ^2 = .03	0.23, ƞ^2 = .05	0.07, ƞ^2 = .01
Location	0.07, ƞ^2 = .01	0.10, ƞ^2 = .01	0.04, ƞ^2 < .01
State/territory	0.13, ƞ^2 = .02	0.14, ƞ^2 = .02	0.11, ƞ^2 = .01

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. 2017. “Literacy.” https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/general-capabilities/literacy/

 Google Scholar