Acknowledgments

The following Summary is presented in English; for the Mäori translation Press Here

THE PROJECT

New Zealand’s National Education Monitoring Project commenced in 1993, with the task of assessing and reporting on the achievement of New Zealand primary school children in all areas of the school curriculum. Children are assessed at two class levels: year 4 (halfway through primary education) and year 8 (at the end of primary education). Different curriculum areas and skills are assessed each year, over a four-year cycle. In 2002, the areas covered were writing, listening, viewing, health and physical education.

The main goal of national monitoring is to provide detailed information about what children can do so that patterns of performance can be recognised, successes celebrated, and desirable changes to educational practices and resources identified and implemented. Each year, small random samples of children are selected nationally, then assessed in their own schools by teachers specially seconded and trained for this work. Task instructions are given orally by teachers, through video presentations, on laptop computers, or in writing. Many of the assessment tasks involve the children in the use of equipment and supplies. Their responses are presented orally, by demonstration, in writing, in computer files, or through submission of other physical products. Many of the responses are recorded on videotape for subsequent analysis.

He Pepa Pänui – Poster

THIS REPORT

This report focuses solely on year 8 students. Starting in 1999, assessments of students learning in Mäori immersion programmes were added to the national monitoring programme, at the year 8 level only. In 2002, about 60 percent of these Mäori immersion students were learning in immersion schools (mainly Kura Kaupapa Mäori), while the other 40 percent were learning in immersion classes (located in mainstream schools, but having 80 to 100 percent of instruction conducted in Mäori). For this special sample of students learning predominantly in Mäori, the assessment tasks and task materials were translated into Mäori and administered by teachers experienced in Mäori immersion settings. The results these students achieved are reported here, together with comparative figures for Mäori students in the main year 8 national monitoring sample (whose schooling was conducted predominantly in English).

CHAPTER 1:  KEY FEATURES

 

Chapter 1 explains key features of the National Education Monitoring Project that are relevant to this report.

CHAPTER 2:  ISSUES

 

Chapter 2 explains some issues affecting the interpretation of the assessments in Mäori immersion settings, and especially the comparisons of the achievements of Mäori students in general education and Mäori immersion programmes.

One issue involved the translation of task instructions and materials from English to Mäori. While this was done with considerable care by a team of seven experienced people, some of the resulting translations may have used vocabulary or language structures that would not have been easy for all immersion students to understand. To some extent this is exacerbated because the various Mäori curriculum documents are quite new, but it will always remain a challenge to find natural language in both English and Mäori that communicates exactly the same task requirements.

A related issue is that some of the students in Mäori immersion settings had not yet developed sufficient skills in te reo Mäori to fully understand task instructions or to communicate their responses well. The selected Mäori immersion schools were asked to indicate which of their students had completed more than four years of immersion education, and national monitoring samples were selected from these experienced students. Nevertheless, some of the selected students still struggled at times with communication in Mäori.

Other important issues affecting interpretation of the results are the different curriculum emphases in Mäori immersion schools and classes and the often limited availability of suitable resources for their teaching and learning programmes. Because curriculum priorities are different for Mäori immersion education than for general education, patterns of achievement can be expected to differ accordingly. Also, Mäori immersion education is in an early stage of development. Many immersion schools and classes have been established for only a few years. Teaching and learning resources in te reo Mäori are scarce, as are teachers with suitable expertise. High levels of teacher, parent and student commitment help to compensate for these obstacles to successful learning, but further improvement can be anticipated as Mäori immersion education grows and consolidates.

CHAPTER 3:  WRITING

Aue Te Maroke Hoki! — A Better Story

Chapter 3 presents the results of the assessments of students’ knowledge and skills in writing. Writing is an important means of communication. Through their writing, people communicate feelings, ideas and information to other people, for a wide range of purposes. Expressive writing allows considerable scope for inventiveness, and requires skills such as writing coherently, communicating personal feeling, communicating stories or ideas vividly, and following the conventions associated with particular forms of writing. Functional writing involves presenting information clearly and accurately in written form to describe events, give instructions, promote events or products, fill in forms, and communicate information to other people through letters, postcards, email messages and text messages.

Mäori students in general education and students in Mäori immersion settings performed equally well on eleven of the sixteen writing tasks. Mäori students in general education scored statistically significantly higher on two tasks, and students in Mäori immersion settings scored statistically significantly higher on three tasks.

CHAPTER 4:  LISTENING

Chapter 4 presents the results of the assessments of students’ skills in listening. Listening is an important skill. Good listening is required for a wide variety of purposes, such as participating in conversations, understanding stories, obtaining information, identifying opinions or viewpoints, enjoying entertainments or events, and extending personal language knowledge and skills.
Mäori students in general education scored statistically significantly higher than students in Mäori immersion settings on all ten listening tasks.

CHAPTER 5:  VIEWING

Chapter 5 presents the results of the assessments of students’ knowledge and skills in viewing. Visual messages are prominent in today’s world. Some, like advertisements, are intended to persuade. Some are designed to entertain, or to trigger emotional responses. Many messages designed to communicate information rely heavily on visual information to complement text components. Visual messages are also an important part of interpersonal communication, through the non-verbal signals in facial expressions, gestures and other behaviours. Understanding visual messages is therefore an important educational goal.

Mäori students in general education and students in Mäori immersion settings performed equally well on six of the ten viewing tasks. Mäori students in general education scored statistically significantly higher on two tasks, and students in Mäori immersion settings scored statistically significantly higher on two tasks.

Te Würuhi – The Wolf

CHAPTER 6:  HEALTH

Chapter 6 presents the results of the assessments of students’ knowledge, understandings and skills in health. Health education is intended to help students develop knowledge, understandings and skills in three broad areas that are important to individual and community well-being:

       • maintaining and enhancing personal health and physical development;
       • interacting and relating effectively with other people; and
       • participating in creating healthy communities and environments through responsible
          and critical action.

Mäori students in general education and students in Mäori immersion settings performed equally well on nineteen of the twenty-eight health tasks. Mäori students in general education scored statistically significantly higher on one task, and students in Mäori immersion settings performed statistically significantly higher on eight tasks.

CHAPTER 7:  PHYSICAL EDUCATION

 

Tï Räkau – Tï Räkau

Chapter 7 presents the results of the assessments of students’ skills in physical education. Physical education focuses on the development of personal movement skills and other capabilities appropriate to a wide range of situations and environments. These skills play an important role in carrying out daily routines, performing employment tasks and participating effectively in recreational and sporting activities. Mäori students in general education and students in Mäori immersion settings performed equally well on thirteen of the sixteen physical education tasks. Mäori students in general education scored statistically significantly higher on one task, and students in Mäori immersion settings performed statistically significantly higher on two tasks.

CHAPTER 8:  SURVEYS

Chapter 8 reports the results of surveys of students about their curriculum preferences and their perceptions of their achievement and potential in writing, health education and physical education.

The students were asked to select their three favourite school subjects from a list of twelve subjects. Physical education was the top, or top-equal, choice for both groups, while health was lowest for Mäori students in general education and ninth of the twelve subjects for students in Mäori immersion settings. Writing was second last for both groups, and listening and viewing were not included in the list of twelve subjects. Compared to Mäori students in general education, students in Mäori immersion settings rated mathematics, science and reading substantially higher, and physical education, technology and music substantially lower.

Asked what “people need to do to be good writers”, students could choose up to three things from a list of ten. Compared to Mäori students in general education, students in Mäori immersion settings chose use their imagination much less and write neatly and talk about their work with others much more. Students were also asked to write down what they needed to do to “get better in writing”. Compared to Mäori students in general education, students in Mäori immersion settings placed greater emphasis on improving their editing and checking, their neatness, and how often they wrote, and less emphasis on improving their spelling.

There were also fifteen rating items in the writing survey. Compared to Mäori students in general education, students in Mäori immersion settings:

        • were much more positive about writing at school;
        • felt that their parents were more positive about their writing ability;
        • thought that they were better at spelling (in Mäori, rather than English);
        • read their writing to friends more often;
        • used computers for writing much more often, both at school and at home.

In the health education survey, students were presented with a list of thirteen health activities and asked which they liked or disliked doing most at school. Compared to Mäori students in general education, students in Mäori immersion settings were dramatically less enthusiastic about how to keep safe, and substantially less enthusiastic about foods and healthy eating, but substantially more enthusiastic about how to care for myself, how to care for others, and how to get on with others. There were four rating items in the health education survey. Compared to Mäori students in general education, students in Mäori immersion settings reported more class work that helped them to learn about health, were somewhat less enthusiastic about its value, but were substantially more enthusiastic about continuing to learn or do more health education as they got older.

Te Käri Wïti-Piki — Weet-Bix Card

The students were presented with a list of seven activities that they might do in physical education at school. Compared to Mäori students in general education, students in Mäori immersion setting were similarly and highly enthusiastic about ball activities, dramatically less enthusiastic about athletics, substantially more enthusiastic about swimming, and somewhat more enthusiastic about gymnastics, dance and te reo kori.

When asked to write down up to three very important things a person needs to learn or do to be good in physical education, Mäori students in general education emphasized fitness most, followed by three almost equally popular options: good sportsmanship, positive attitudes and effort, and physical or game skills. Students in Mäori immersion settings emphasized physical or game skills most, followed in order by training/practising, fitness, and good sportsmanship.

SUMMARY

 

In total, across all five areas reported here, Mäori students in general education performed better on 20 percent of the tasks, students in Mäori immersion settings performed better on 19 percent of the tasks, and there was no difference on 61 percent of the tasks.

This overall pattern also applied in three of the five areas: writing, viewing and health. In the other two areas, however, the patterns were different. Mäori students in general education performed better than students in Mäori immersion settings on all ten listening tasks. Conversely, students in Mäori immersion settings performed better on 29 percent of the health tasks while Mäori students in general education performed better on just 3 percent of these tasks.