Pacific Island Sample
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A new feature in National Monitoring in 1999 was the commitment to look directly at the achievement of Pacific Island students in New Zealand primary and intermediate schools. These students have been 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 has selected special additional samples of 120 year 4 students and 120 year 8 students to allow the achievement of Pacific Island students to be assessed and reported. The augmented sample was too small, however, to allow separate reporting on students from different Pacific Island nations (such as Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji).

All schools in the main NEMP year 8 sample that had 10 percent or more Pacific Island students (as classified in school records) were selected. All other schools nationally with at least 12 year 8 students and at least 20 percent Pacific Island 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 three groups of four) 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 Island, Mäori, and other students in the schools with more than 10 percent Pacific Island students were then compared. Because all of the schools chosen for these analyses have at least 10 percent Pacific Island 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.

Each analysis compared the performance of about 50 Pacific Island students, 25 Mäori students and 45 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 below, together with the standard deviations for all students in this sample. Where statistically significant differences were found, the mean for a significantly lower group is shown in red italic and the mean for a significantly higher group is red.

For year 4 students, there were statistically significant differences in performance among the three groups on three of the 13 tasks. On all three tasks the Pacific Island students scored significantly lower than the "other" students, and on one of these three tasks the Mäori students also scored significantly lower than the "other" students.

For year 8 students, there were statistically significant differences in performance among the three groups on six of the 13 tasks. On five of these tasks the Pacific Island students scored significantly lower than the "other" students, including one task where they were also significantly lower than the Mäori students. On the sixth task, the Mäori students scored significantly lower than the "other" students.

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Year 4
Average (mean) marks for year 4 students classified as Pacific Island students, Mäori students or other students attending schools with at least 10 percent Pacific Island students.
 
Pacif.Is.
Mean
Mäori
Mean
Other
Mean
Overall
Std. Dev.
Rainy Day
5.98
7.15
6.15
3.58
Clay Model
7.60
7.84
10.05
4.28
Teddy
6.13
6.36
7.05
4.60
Cave Creature
6.61
6.55
6.66
3.42
Link Task 1
8.62
10.20
10.15
3.93
Link Task 2
6.13
6.36
7.05
3.95
Two Paintings
4.16
4.40
5.18
3.12
Art Objects A
3.10
4.09
4.32
2.75
Landscapes
3.57
5.55
5.82
2.52
Whakairo Räkau
4.28
5.16
4.80
1.58
Firebirds
3.98
4.87
4.97
2.07
Link Task 3
6.20
7.30
8.47
3.03
Link Task 4
7.98
7.87
8.81
2.58

Statistically significant (p<.05) differences among the means are shown thus: significantly lower or higher.

 
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Year 8
Average (mean) marks for year 8 students classified as Pacific Island students, Mäori students or other students attending schools with at least 10 percent Pacific Island students.
 
Pacif.Is.
Mean
Mäori
Mean
Other
Mean
Overall
Std. Dev.
Rainy Day
7.36
8.48
9.61
4.22
Clay Model
9.76
11.43
12.03
4.39
Teddy
11.47
9.83
12.98
4.85
Cave Creature
7.89
9.41
8.21
4.10
Link Task 1
12.55
10.81
12.39
4.30
Link Task 2
8.14
9.87
9.66
4.39
Two Paintings
4.92
6.41
7.17
3.25
Art Objects A
7.68
10.00
9.95
3.72
Landscapes
6.57
5.79
7.42
2.45
Whakairo Rkau
5.35
5.67
5.19
1.80
Firebirds
4.62
5.15
5.58
2.18
Link Task 3
13.65
15.48
16.94
5.55
Link Task 4
8.66
8.86
9.93
2.90

Statistically significant (p<.05) differences among the means are shown thus: significantly lower or higher.

 
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