Australia's literacy and numeracy test for initial teacher education students: trends in numeracy for low- and high-achieving students

The numeracy capabilities of pre-service teachers are a recent focus in the Australian educational system. In this article, we discuss findings from an analysis of data from the Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education Students (LANTITE), which is administered by the Australian Council for Educational Research. In our analysis, we considered numeracy test data from 20 students from one Australian university: those who achieved the 10 highest and the 10 lowest overall numeracy scores in 2016 at this university on their first attempt of the test. We found that these groups clearly have particular characteristics that were linked to their success or failure on the numeracy test. We discuss programs and resources that the university has made available for students in preparation for the LANTITE and provide additional suggestions to support such students going forward.