Part 2 — PERFORMANCE OF SUBGROUPS - Geographic Zone Differences
Geographic Zone Differences

Results achieved by students from Auckland, the rest of the North Island, and the South Island were compared. Both the year 4 and 8 samples across the first four years averaged 28 percent of students in Greater Auckland, 49 percent in the rest of the North Island, and 23 percent in the South Island.

The first data column shows the percentage of tasks on which there were no statistically significant differences in student performance according to geographic zone. The second data column shows the percentage of tasks on which statistically significant differences occurred in relation to zone.
Geographic Zone Differences: Year 4
Subject
=
Diff
Science
92
8
Art
92
8
Graphs/Tables
93
7
Music
80
20
Technology
93
7
Reading
93
7
Speaking
100
0
Info. Skills
95
5
Social Studies
5
95
Mathematics
91
9
Listening
88
12
Viewing
78
22
Health
84
16
Physical Educ.
87
13
Writing
88
12
Average
90
10
Geographic Zone Differences: Year 8
Subject
=
Diff
Science
95
5
Art
84
16
Graphs/Tables
97
3
Music
95
5
Technology
100
0
Reading
100
0
Speaking
58
42
Info. Skills
70
30
Social Studies
77
23
Mathematics
80
20
Listening
100
0
Viewing
100
0
Health
93
7
Physical Educ.
91
9
Writing
90
10
Average
89
11
   
Comment The interesting regional differences elude ready explanation. For example, there was a statistically significant difference on only one of twenty-seven information skills tasks at year 4, whereas at year 8 the differences applied to eight of the twenty-seven tasks, with students in the South Island scoring better on all of these tasks. In social studies, there were statistically significant differences among the three subgroups on six of the twenty-six tasks, with students from the South Island scoring highest on all of these tasks, which featured a substantial focus on factual knowledge. By contrast, the percentage differences on the five out of twelve speaking tasks at the year 8 level are less clear cut. Students in greater Auckland performed statistically significantly higher on one task, but lower on two of the tasks. Students from elsewhere in the North Island scored significantly lower on one task. Overall, there is no consistently clear pattern of one region performing better or worse than another.