National comparisons updated for the Social-Emotional Wellbeing survey
Feature 8 Feb 2023 4 minute readIn January 2023, ACER updated the national comparisons for the Social-Emotional Wellbeing (SEW) survey to provide schools with a more accurate representation of the wellbeing of Australian students.
To help educators interpret their results from the SEW survey, ACER prepares comparisons to a large group of past SEW student survey participants, referred to as the national comparison group.
The new comparison group has been taken from 2021 survey results. These results were used to make the group as representative as possible, as students were more likely to attend surveys than the previous year.
The new comparison group replaces the results previously published in 2016, which were taken from SEW student survey responses between 2013 and 2015.
Comparing the results
Interestingly, although the survey responses from 2021 were taken during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were strong similarities to the 2013–15 results.
Across the Early Years, Primary and Secondary surveys, summary statistics such as mean scores and standard deviation, percentages of attendance at each year level, and percentages of different options of agreement/disagreement for males and females showed similar trends to 2013–2015.
However, as you can see in the tables, overall the means were slightly lower than 2013–15, with the exception of year 2.
It is important to note here that one scale exists for the Early Years survey (which is based on teacher/carer observations of students) and another scale exists for both the Primary and Secondary surveys (which is based on students’ self-reports of their social and emotional wellbeing). This means that the Primary and Secondary scale score results can be directly compared with each other, while Early Years scale scores cannot be compared with the other two surveys.
| SEW Early Years | Prep/Reception | Year 1 |
|---|---|---|
|
2021 mean (standard deviation) |
123.09 (15.51) |
121.59 (15.8) |
|
2013–15 mean (standard deviation) |
123.4 (16) |
122.2 (17.2) |
| Difference in mean | -0.31 | -0.61 |
| SEW Primary | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | Year 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
2021 mean (standard deviation) |
120.22 (11.98) |
119.25 (12.72) |
118.41 (13.14) |
118.41 (13.43) |
117.63 (13.56) |
|
2013–15 mean (standard deviation) |
118.34 (16.97) |
119.64 (16.42) |
120.63 (15.8) |
120.41 (14.44) |
120.61 (14.16) |
| Difference in mean | +1.88 | -0.39 | -1.79 | -2 | -2.47 |
| SEW Secondary | Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 | Year 10 | Year 11 | Year 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
2021 mean (standard deviation) |
114.95 (9.63) |
113.71 (9.78) |
112.14 (9.26) |
112.1 (8.7) |
112.52 (8.77) |
112.57 (8.57) |
|
2013–15 mean (standard deviation) |
117.37 (10.42) |
115.34 (10.08) |
113.63 (9.84) |
113.18 (9.86) |
113.48 (9.03) |
113.19 (8.94) |
| Difference in mean | -2.42 | -1.63 | -1.49 | -1.08 | -0.96 | -0.62 |
Impact
The national comparison group is provided to offer schools a way to contextualise their results in their reports. Updating to reflect the survey responses in 2021 will provide a more accurate insight into the wellbeing of Australian students, especially considering the widespread changes and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
If you have any queries, please contact oarrsupport@acer.org.
You can find out more about the Social-Emotional Wellbeing survey here: www.acer.org/au/sew