Making Sense of Standardised Assessment Data: A Response to Snow et al. (2025)

I write in response to the commentary by Snow et al. (2025) on the paper Are Australian students' academic skills declining? Interrogating 25 years of national and international standardised assessment data published in this journal (Larsen 2024). In this response I address the four major areas of concern raised by Snow et al., and conclude with some suggestions for new approaches to using standardised assessment data to better understand Australian students' academic progress.