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A new feature in National Monitoring since 1999 has been the commitment to look directly at the achievement of Pacific students in New Zealand primary and intermediate schools. These students were among the samples in NEMP assessments between 1995 and 1998, but not in sufficient numbers to allow their results to be reported separately. At the request of the Ministry of Education, NEMP now selects special additional samples of 120 year 4 students and 120 year 8 students to allow the achievement of Pacific students to be assessed and reported. The augmented samples are too small, however, to allow separate reporting on students from different Pacific nations (such as Samoa, Tonga and Fiji). The augmented samples
are drawn from schools with at least 15 percent Pacific students. Schools
in this category comprise about 10 percent of New Zealand schools and
include about 15 percent of all students. About 75 percent of Pacific
students attend such schools. All schools in the
main NEMP year 8 sample that had 15 percent or more Pacific students
(as classified in school records) were selected. All other schools nationally
with at least 12 year 8 students and at least 15 percent Pacific students
in their total roll were identified, and an additional random sample
of 10 schools drawn from this list. A similar procedure was followed
at year 4 level, except that schools already chosen at year 8 level
were excluded from the sampling list. From each specially sampled school,
12 students (in 3 groups of 4) were sampled, confirmed and assessed
using exactly the same procedures as in the main sample. The students’
performances were also scored in the same manner as the performances
of students in the main sample. The results for
Pacific, Mäori and other students in the schools with more than 15 percent
Pacific students were then compared. Because all of the schools chosen
for these analyses have at least 15 percent Pacific students, the results
only apply to students at schools like these. Differences among
the three ethnic groups of students were checked for statistical significance
using one way analysis of variance on the overall scores for each task
attempted by individual students (team tasks were excluded). Each analysis
compared the performance of about 50 Pacific students, 30 Mäori students
and 30 other students. The critical level for statistical significance
was set at p = .05 (so that differences this large or larger among the
subgroups would not be expected by chance in more than five percent
of cases). Where statistical significance occurred, Tukey tests were
used to identify which groups differed significantly. The mean scores for each group on each task are presented in the tables following, together with the standard deviations for all students in this sample. Statistically significant differences are clearly indicated. |
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YEAR
4
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YEAR
8
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Average
(mean) marks for year 4 and year 8 students, attending schools enrolling
at least fifteen percent Pacific students, |
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| Statistically significant (p<.05) differences among the means are shown thus: significantly lower or higher. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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For year 4 students, there were statistically significant differences in performance among the three groups on 10 of the 30 tasks:
Thus Pacific students
scored lower than “other” students on 20 percent of the tasks
and Mäori students scored lower than “other” students on 17
percent of the tasks. Pacific students scored lower than Mäori students
on 3 percent of the tasks. Both Pacific and Mäori students scored higher than “other” students on 3 percent of the tasks. On the Year 4 Social Studies Survey, there were statistically significant differences on 4 of the 21 rating items. The “other” students were more positive than the Pacific students on question 1 (how much they like doing social studies at school) and question 5 (how they feel about learning or doing social studies as they get older). Both “other” and Mäori students thought their class did more really good things in social studies (question 4), compared to Pacific students. Mäori students also thought they had more opportunities to learn about why people have different ideas (question 18), compared to Pacific students. |
For year 8 students, there were statistically significant differences in performance among the three groups on 7 of the 35 tasks:
Thus Pacific students
scored lower than “other” students on 14 percent of the
tasks, Mäori students scored higher than “other” students
on 6 percent of tasks and Pacific students scored higher than “other”
students on 3 percent of the tasks. On the Year 8 Social Studies Survey, there were statistically significant differences on 7 of the 21 rating items. Both “other” and Mäori students were more positive than Pacific students on question 4 (how often their class does really good things in social studies) and question 10 (how much they like learning about why people have different ideas). Mäori students were more positive than Pacific students on question 5 (how they feel about learning or doing social studies as they get older). “Other” students were more positive than Pacific students on four questions: question 6 (how much they like learning about the way people work together and do things in groups), question 14 (how often they learn about the way people work together and do things in groups), question 16 (how often they learn about other places in New Zealand and how people live there) and question 17 (how often they learn about the work people do and how they make a living). |
| Summary Pacific students scored lower than “other” students on 20 percent of the tasks at year 4 level and 14 percent of the tasks at year 8 level, but higher than “other” students on 1 task (3 percent of tasks) at both levels. Year 4 and year 8 Pacific students performed very similarly to Mäori students. It is noteworthy that in the Social Studies Survey, Pacific students were less positive than Mäori or “other” students on four rating items at year 4 level and seven rating items at year 8 level. |
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