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Although national monitoring has been designed primarily to present an overall national picture of student achievement, there is some provision for reporting on performance differences among subgroups of the sample. Nine demographic variables are available for creating subgroups, with students divided into two or three subgroups on each variable, as detailed in Chapter 1.
The analyses of the relative performance of subgroups used an overall score for each task, created by adding scores for the most important components of the task.
Where only two subgroups were compared, differences in task performance between the two subgroups were checked for statistical significance using t-tests. Where three subgroups were compared, one way analysis of variance was used to check for statistically significant differences among the three subgroups.
Because the number of students included in each analysis was quite large (approximately 450), the statistical tests were quite sensitive to small differences. To reduce the likelihood of attention being drawn to unimportant differences, the critical level for statistical significance was set at p = .01 (so that differences this large or larger among the subgroups would not be expected by chance in more than one percent of cases).
For the first four of the nine demographic variables, statistically significant differences among the subgroups were found for less than 16 percent of the tasks at both year 4 and year 8. For the remaining five variables, relating to student gender and ethnicity, school socio-economic status and school ethnic mix, statistically significant differences were found on a substantial proportion of tasks at one or both levels.
In the report below, all "differences" mentioned are statistically significant differences (to save space, the words "statistically significant" are omitted).
School
size
Results were compared from students in larger, medium sized, and small schools
(exact definitions were given in Chapter
1). For year 4 students, there were no differences among the subgroups on
any of the 13 tasks, nor on any questions of the Year
4 Art Survey.
For year 8 students, there were no differences among the subgroups on any of
the 13 tasks, but there were differences on two questions of the Year
8 Art Survey. Students from larger schools thought that they did really
good things in class less often (question 4), but that they had more opportunity
to work with clay (question 5g).
School
type
Results were compared for year 8 students attending full primary and intermediate
schools. A difference was found on just one of the 13 tasks. Students attending
intermediate schools scored higher on Teddy.
There were also differences on three questions of the Year
8 Art Survey. Compared to students from intermediate schools, students from
full primary schools thought their class did really good things in art more
often (question 4), but had less opportunity to make models (question 5f) or
work with clay (question 5g).
Zone
Results achieved by students from Auckland, the rest of the North Island,
and the South Island were compared. For year 4 students, there were differences
among the three subgroups on one of the 13 tasks. Students from Auckland scored
highest on Teddy. There was also a difference
on just one question of the Year 4 Art Survey.
Students from the South Island felt that their mums or dads were more positive
about how good they were at art (question 10).
For year 8 students, there were differences among the three subgroups on two of the 13 tasks. Students from Auckland scored lowest on Art Objects A, and Link Task 4. Students from the South Island scored highest on Art Objects A. There were no differences on any questions of the Year 8 Art Survey.
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Community
size
Results were compared for students living in communities containing over
100,000 people (main centres), communities containing 10,000 to 100,000 people
(provincial cities), and communities containing less than 10,000 people (rural
areas). For year 4 students, there was a difference among the three subgroups
on one of the 13 tasks. Students from main centres scored highest and students
from provincial cities scored lowest on Teddy.
There were no differences on any questions of the Year
4 Art Survey. For year 8 students, there were differences on two of the
13 tasks. Students from rural areas scored lowest on Two Paintings (p38), while
students from main centres scored lowest on Art
Objects A. There were no differences on any questions of the Year
8 Art Survey.
Gender
Results achieved by male and female students were compared. For year 4 students,
there were differences between boys and girls on two of the 13 tasks. Boys scored
higher than girls on Rainy Day and Link
Task 2. However, girls were more positive than boys on four questions of
the Year 4 Art Survey: how much they liked
doing art at school (question1), how good their teacher thought they were at
art (question 9), how much they liked doing art things in their own time (question
11), and how much they wanted to keep learning about art when they grow up (question
13).
For year 8 students, there were differences between boys and girls on three of the 13 tasks. Girls scored higher than boys on Link Task 1, Link Task 2 and Landscapes. The results on the Year 8 Art Survey exactly paralleled those for the year 4 students, with girls more positive on the same four questions.
Student
Ethnicity
Results achieved by Mäori and non-Mäori students were compared. For year 4 students,
there were no differences on any of the 13 tasks, nor on any questions of the
Year 4 Art Survey (p50).
For year 8 students, there were differences between Mäori and non-Mäori students on three of the 13 tasks. Non-Mäori scored higher than Mäori students on Link Task 1, Two Paintings and Landscapes. However, Mäori students gave higher ratings than non-Mäori students on four questions of the Year 8 Art Survey: how much they thought they learned about art at school (question 2), how often they were involved in group art activities (question 5i), how often they looked at art and talked about art at school (question 6), and how much they wanted to keep learning about art when they grew up (question 13).
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Proportion
of Mäori students in schools
Schools were categorised into three subgroups: schools with less than 10
percent Mäori students, schools with 10 to 30 percent Mäori students, and schools
with more than 30 percent Mäori students. Results were compared for students attending
schools in these three categories.
For year 4 students, differences between the three subgroups were found on five of the 13 tasks: Art Objects A, Landscapes, Firebirds, Link Task 3 and Link Task 4. All of these tasks focused on responding to art, and students attending schools with less than 10 percent Mäori students performed better than students attending schools with higher proportions of Mäori students. There were, however, no differences on any questions of the Year 4 Art Survey.
For year 8 students, differences between the three subgroups were found on four of the 13 tasks: Clay Model, Two Paintings, Landscapes, and Link Task 3. In all cases, performance levels declined as the proportion of Mäori students in the schools increased. There were also differences on five questions of the Year 8 Art Survey. Students from schools with more than 30 percent Mäori students enrolled gave the most positive ratings on how much they thought they learned about art at school (question 2), how often they looked at art and talked about art at school (question 6), how much they liked doing art things in their own time (question 11), how often they did really good things in art in their own time (question 12), and how much they wanted to keep learning about art as they grew up (question 13).
Proportion
of Pacific Island students in schools
Because most of the Pacific Island students are concentrated into relatively
few schools, it was difficult to create sensible subgroups for schools with
higher or lower percentages of Pacific Island students. Two subgroups were formed:
students attending schools with up to 10 percent Pacific Island students, and
students attending schools with more than 10 percent Pacific Island students.
Results were compared for students in these two subgroups. For year 4 students,
differences between the two subgroups were found on three of the 13 tasks, all
involving responding to art. Students attending schools with more than 10 percent
Pacific Island students scored lower on Art
Objects A, Landscapes,
and Link Task 3. There were
no differences on any questions of the Year 4
Art Survey. For year 8 students, differences between the two subgroups were
found on six of the 13 tasks, five of which involved responding to art. In each
case, students attending schools with more than 10 percent Pacific Island students
scored lower. The tasks involved were: Clay
Model, Art Objects A, Landscapes,
Whakairo Räkau, Link
Task 3, and Link Task 4.
On the Year 8 Art Survey, students attending
schools with more than 10 percent Pacific Island students gave higher ratings
on how often they learned new things in art at school (question 7), and on how
often they did really good things in art in their own time (question 12).
Socio-Economic
Index
Schools are categorised by the Ministry of Education based on census data
for the census mesh blocks where children attending the schools live. The SES
index takes into account household income levels, categories of employment, and
the ethnic mix in the census mesh blocks. The SES index uses 10 subdivisions,
each containing 10 percent of schools (deciles 1 to 10). For our purposes, the
bottom three deciles (1-3) formed the low SES group, the middle four deciles (4-7)
formed the medium SES group, and the top three deciles (8-10) formed the high
SES group. Results were compared for students attending schools in each of these
three SES groups.
For year 4 students, there were differences among the three subgroups on four of the 13 tasks: Art Objects A, Landscapes, Firebirds, and Link Task 3. In each case, the tasks involved responding to art, and students in the low SES schools performed worst while students from high SES schools performed best. There were no differences on questions of the Year 4 Art Survey.
For year 8 students, there were differences among the three subgroups on eight of the 13 tasks: Rainy Day, Clay Model, Teddy, Link Task 1, Two Paintings, Landscapes, Firebirds, Link Task 3, and Link Task 4. Students in the low SES schools performed worst, while students from high SES schools generally performed somewhat better than students from medium SES schools. There were also differences on five questions of the Year 8 Art Survey. Students from low SES schools gave higher ratings on how much they liked doing art at school (question 1), how often their class did really good things in art (question 4), how often they did drawing in art at school (question 5a), how often they looked at art and talked about art at school (question 6), and how often they learned new things in art at school (question 7).
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Summary
School size, school type (full primary or intermediate), geographic zone and community
size did not seem to be important factors predicting achievement on the art tasks.
The other five factors revealed more substantial differences. Boys performed better
than girls on 15 percent of the tasks at year 4 level, but worse than girls on
23 percent of tasks at year 8. In addition, at both year levels girls were more
positive on four survey questions about art activities in and out of school. There
were no differences between Mäori and non-Mäori year 4 students, on tasks or on
survey questions. Non-Mäori students outperformed Mäori students on 23 percent
of the tasks at year 8 level, but year 8 Mäori students were more positive on
four survey questions. Students attending schools with high proportions of Mäori
students performed worse than students attending other schools on 38 percent of
the tasks at year 4 level (all involving responding to art) and on 31 percent
of the tasks at year 8 level (mainly involving responding to art). Students attending
schools with more than 10 percent Pacific Island students performed worse than
students at other schools on 23 percent of the tasks at year 4 level and 46 percent
of the tasks at year 8 level. With one exception at year 8 level, all of these
tasks involved responding to art. Most significantly, there were statistically
significant differences in the performance of students from low, medium and high
decile schools on 31 percent of the year 4 tasks (all involving responding to
art) and 62 percent of the year 8 tasks. For these three factors relating to school
ethnic mix and socio-economic decile rating, there were no differences on the
art survey questions at year 4 level. At year 8 level, however, students in schools
containing higher proportions of Mäori or Pacific Island students, or having low
decile ratings, were more positive than other students on some survey questions.
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